Kingdoms, republics and people's democracies: legitimacy and national identity in European constitutions

This article uses constitutional texts to explore the models of national identity which elites in European states have apparently wished to endorse. It analyses three types of constitutions – of constitutional monarchies, democratic republics, and former revolutionary communist states – to establish how the primary principle of legitimacy is identified, and how the concept of ‘the people’ is understood. It concludes that these issues evoke a different response in the three types of constitution, suggesting a surprising survival of the implications of the monarchical-republican distinction, and a brief flowering of at least the principle of international proletarian solidarity in communist constitutions.