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Abstract

Section I summarizes the progressive neutralization/depoliticization of the right of resistance, from the Middle Ages until today. Section II analyses the positivization of the right of resistance in contemporary constitutions, a necessary paradox for modern constitutional orders (and theory). In section III the positive law provisions concerning the right of resistance are analysed in their functions of self‐subversion for legal orders. Sections IV and V place this theoretical framework in the broader context of globalization processes, where the right of resistance may serve as a legal basis for contestatory practices and as a tool for the (internal) repoliticization of the normative systems of unlimited transnational actors, regimes, and communicative processes. Thus, the (positivization of the) right of resistance may perform two functions simultaneously: a defence against unlimited powers and communicative processes and a constitutionalizing pressure on transnational regimes’ internal operations, serving as tool of self‐contestation and democratic legitimation.