2016 saw the publication of two important, but fundamentally divergent, works on Aotearoa New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler’s A Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand and He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa, the 2016 report of Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation. While Palmer and Butler’s vision is one of reforming and strengthening our current Westminster constitutional system, Matike Mai’s is one of transformational, creative change, in which there is room for tino rangatiratanga—substantive self-determination—to be realised. Here, after situating this work theoretically, I explore and contextualise these two texts as they represent, respectively, a modern ideal-typical Pākehā position on constitutionalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, and a critical, Māori constitutional discourse from which this orthodoxy can be interrogated. Through this comparison, I argue that Pākehā constitutional orthodoxy continues to talk past Māori constitutional aspirations because it fails to account for its own ideological and ontological biases, representing itself as occupying a space of reality and neutrality, rather than domination. Because this orthodoxy perceives tino-rangatiratanga claims through this lens of self-affirming bias, it perpetually misapprehends and mischaracterises these claims— as either seeking mere property and management rights (these being already constitutionally provided for), or, if something more substantial, as unrealistic, divisive, and extreme.

<p>This paper explores the concept of constitutional democratic legitimacy and the democratic legitimacy of New Zealand’s constitution in particular. In so doing, it considers Bruce Ackerman’s constitutional theory in We the People, Volume 1: Foundations and the criticisms it has provoked to develop a theoretical framework of three constitutional models (monism, dualism and rights foundationalism) that can be used to assess constitutional democratic legitimacy. It then utilises this framework as a tool for analysing New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, observing that New Zealand has a particularly sophisticated monist constitution, noting s 268 of the Electoral Act 1993 and the adoption of MMP voting as particular institutional examples. Nevertheless, it is recognised that New Zealand’s constitution may still be critiqued in terms of its claim to democratic legitimacy through the alternative perspectives of monism (focusing on remaining flaws in New Zealand’s electoral system), dualism (focusing on the absence of avenues for binding public constitutional participation) and rights foundationalism (focusing on the constitutional place of the Treaty of Waitangi). Alternative suggestions for reform are offered.</p>

<p>In our contemporary period of crisis and flux, the ability to envisage and struggle for better modes of social being—i.e. utopianism—has seemingly never been more urgent, or more difficult. In this context, this thesis turns to the Marxist utopian tradition as a key resource for political hope, demonstrating both what was lost in the repudiation of Marxism and socialism at the ‘end of history,’ and identifying emergent forms of post-capitalist utopian desire within contemporary culture. Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical and methodological framework of the thesis, bringing together a Gramscian approach to cultural analysis with Ernst Bloch’s expansive understanding of utopianism as a ubiquitous aspect of the social world, rooted in a view of historical materialism as itself a utopian methodology and tradition. On this approach, utopia becomes a lens for viewing culture, the cultural terrain suddenly animated by utopian currents, desires, and impulses. Chapters 2 and 3 give historical background for thinking (with) Marxist utopianism today: first, tracing the development of neoliberal and anti-communist common sense over the twentieth century, a successful ‘war of utopia’ culminating in the exile of Marxist utopianism from the social imaginary at the ‘end of history’; then revisiting Marxist socialist history, highlighting both the general utopian power of the existence of the socialist horizon, and the expansive heterogeneity of that horizon, exploring, in particular, Marxist visions of emancipated gender and sexual relations, and its decolonial and ecological currents. Chapters 4-6 utilise the thesis’ utopian optic to investigate the contemporary cultural and imaginative landscape, finding emergent forms of post-capitalist desire despite the weakness and fragmentation of contemporary left politics. Chapter 4 finds nascent anti-systemic and ecosocialist potential in today’s ‘end of the world’ structure of feeling; chapter 5 identifies, across the otherwise unrelated moments of new age trends and new romance texts, proto-socialist desires to transcend individualism; and chapter 6 investigates the impasses and utopian possibilities in the recent return of the socialist imaginary. Together, these constellations demonstrate not only the existence of post-capitalist utopian desire today, but also that this desire rests on quite simple visions of the good life—highlighting the loss of capitalism’s utopian signification in its contemporary crisis-ridden form, rarely any longer even feigning responsibility for the social good. Chapter 7 concludes by arguing that despite current objective conditions that often feel hopeless, there is good reason to maintain ‘militant optimism' today.</p>

<p>This paper explores the concept of constitutional democratic legitimacy and the democratic legitimacy of New Zealand’s constitution in particular. In so doing, it considers Bruce Ackerman’s constitutional theory in We the People, Volume 1: Foundations and the criticisms it has provoked to develop a theoretical framework of three constitutional models (monism, dualism and rights foundationalism) that can be used to assess constitutional democratic legitimacy. It then utilises this framework as a tool for analysing New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, observing that New Zealand has a particularly sophisticated monist constitution, noting s 268 of the Electoral Act 1993 and the adoption of MMP voting as particular institutional examples. Nevertheless, it is recognised that New Zealand’s constitution may still be critiqued in terms of its claim to democratic legitimacy through the alternative perspectives of monism (focusing on remaining flaws in New Zealand’s electoral system), dualism (focusing on the absence of avenues for binding public constitutional participation) and rights foundationalism (focusing on the constitutional place of the Treaty of Waitangi). Alternative suggestions for reform are offered.</p>