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thoritarianism. Additionally, it has the naturę of a dilemma. because every conscious attempt to achieve collective control over the drift itself gets cau-ght up in this logie and only strengthens the drift.

The only social dynamie that has effectively worked against this evolutio-nary drift in the past and can offer resistance in the futurę is, according to Sciulli, to be found in the institutions ofa “societal constitutionalism”:

„Only the presence of institutions of extemal proccdural re-straint (on inadvcrtent or systemie exercises of collective power) within a civil society can account for the possibility of a nonau-thoritarian social order under modem conditions."

The dccisivc point is to institutionalise procedures of (in the sense of rational choicc) non-rational norms that can be empirically identified in what hc calls "collcgial formations," that is, in the specific organisational forms of the profcssions and other norm-producing and deliberative institutions:

„It is typically found not only within public and private rese-arch institutes, artistic and intellectual networks, and universi-tics, but also within legislatures, courts and commissions, Professional associations, and for that matter, the research divisions of private and public corporations, the rule-making bodies of nonprofit organizations, and evcn the dircctoratcs of public and privatc corporations.”

The public policy conscąucnce is to legitimatc the autonomy of such collcgial formations, guarantceing it politically and undcrpinning it legally. Bcy-ond the historically achicved guarantccs of autonomy for rcligious sphcrcs, institutions of collective bargaining and free associations, thesc guarantccs should also apply to

„delibcrativc bodies within modem civil societics as well as Professional associations and sites of profcssionals' practice within corporations, universities, hospitals, artistic networks, and clscwhcrc.”

This thcory of societal constitutionalism had its forerunners in ideas about privatc govcrnmcnt in the US and about co-dctcrmination and other forms of dcmocratisation of social sub-systems in Europę, exposing non-govemmental formal organisations to constitutionalisation prcssure. Today, it can link up dircctly with post-RawIsian approachcs to dclibcrative theory of democracy that scck to idcntify dcmocratic potential in social institutions, and to draw normativc and institutional conseąuenccs. The important thing here is that deliberative democratisation is not secn as confincd to political institutions but explicitly considercd in its cxtcnsion to social actors in the national and the international context. Evcn morę important are the parallcls to the constitu-tional theory of Systems sociology, which portrays a quitc similar dcvclopmcn-tal dynamics of system cxpansion and its concomitant restraint. From a systemie viewpoint, the historical role of the constitution is not, cspccially when it comes to fundamental rights, cxhaustcd in norming State organisation and individual legał rights, but consists primarily in guarantceing the multiplicity of social differentiation against swamping tcndcncics. Considercd historically, constitutions emerge as a countcrpart to the cmcrgcncc of autonomous sphc-res of action typical for modern societics. As soon as cxpansionist tcndcncics arise in the political system, threatening to ruin the proccss of social differentiation itself, social conflicts comc about, as a conscqucncc of which fundamental rights, as social countcr-institutions, are institutionaliscd prcciscly whcrc social differentiation wcrc threatened by the tendcncics to sclf-dcstruction inherent in it. Individual conflicts bctwccn private citizcns and the administra-tive bureaucracy at the same timc scrvc to set up lcgally institutionaliscd guarantces of a sclf-rcstraint of politics.

Thcre follows a generał definition of constitutions in the process of mo-dcmisation. Polanyis' farnous double movement - the implcmcntation of the market and the setting up of a protectivc cladding of cultural institutions finds its generalisation herc to the cxtcnt that the dynamics corrcsponding to it also ineludes other expansive social systems. In constitutionalisation the point is to liberate the potential of highly specialised dynamics by institutio-nalising it and, at the same time, to institutionalise mechanisms of self-restraint against its society-wide expansion. Thcse expansive trends have manifested in historically very diverse situations, carlicr chiefly in politics, today morę in the economy, in science, technology and other social sectors. Strengthcning the autonomy of spheres of action as a countcr-movement to trends of dc-diffe-rentiation seems to be the generał response at work in both the political constitutions of the tradition and the cmcrging civil constitutions. If it was the central task of political constitutions to uphold the autonomy of other spheres of action against the expansion of the polity, spccifically in relation to political instrumentalisation, then in today's civil constitutions it is prcsumably to gu-arantee the chances of articulating so-callcd non-rational logics of action against the dominant social rationalisation trend, by conqucring arcas of autonomy for social reflection in long-lasting conflicts, and institutionalising them.

But ought this not to becomc the primary task spccifically of a gcnuincly political constitution of world socicty? This dccp-rootcd prcjudicc would sccm very hard to remove. Yet effectivc shifts in the balancc bctwccn politics and other social processes in the globalisation proccss are compclling the contcm-plation of a further decisive changc to constitutionalisation.

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