Luhmann and the Constitution: contribution for a pluricontextual analysis of the Rule of Law

Abstract

This paper aims to present the conception of the Constitution as a structural coupling between the legal system and the political system and as an evolutionary acquisition of a functionally differentiated society according to the methodological framework of Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory.  In this path, it presents the foundations of systemic interpretation and elaborates on the functions performed by the Constitution towards the Law and Politics by the management of its constitutive paradoxes and in the emergence of the two faces of the modern State founded in Law. Thus, it presents a description of the constitutional phenomenon as a scheme that makes it possible to define two reverse perspectives as a unit, celebrated as an ambiguous achievement by simultaneously promoting the legal fettering of political force and the political exploitation of law.