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33 Law & Literature 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/lal33 and id is 1 raw text is: LAW & LTERATURE * VOLUME 33 * NUMBER 1 Time Framing in the Rhetoric of Constitutional Preambles Nomi Claire Lazar Abstract, Constitutional preambles grow ever longer, more complex, and more present in public debate. Extant theories note their descriptive or symbolic roles, but leave key elements, such as the use of historical recitation, untouched. A core purpose of such elements is legitimation. Because constitutions are not just legal documents but when promulgated, contentious events, leaders must sell a constitution to a sometimes sceptical or fractured citizenry. To sell the constitutional future, preambles cite the past. While the substance of past events matters, the arc of time traced out by joining the dots between events, also does rhetorical work. These narrative arcs have familiar shapes: progressive, cyclical, or eschatological. We recognize this type of story, and we know what type of thing happens next. By situating the new constitution as an event along such a recognizable arc of time, citizens can infer a hopeful future from the shape of a strategically constructed past. While not all historical preambles use temporal framing as a rhetorical strategy, the technique is common, and, here, illustrated through in-depth engagements with China's and Hungary's constitutional preambles. Keywords, preamble, rhetorical framing, China, Hungary, constitution, temporality, legitimacy, history, time What purpose do constitutional preambles serve? Among modern, written consti- tutions, preambles are a near-ubiquitous element. While normally not justiciable, preambles have acquired increasing importance not only in recent constitutional interpretation but also in public debate, suggesting that their significance is not just legal but political.' Indeed, many constitutional preambles are profoundly rhetorical, aiming not just to describe but to persuade. This paper argues that, whatever other rhetorical and political uses constitutional preambles may serve, they are often deployed as a legitimation tactic. How? Nearly half of recent con- stitutional preambles include references to the historical past.2 And while these references may seem descriptive, merely recounting the events which led up to, or caused the promulgation of a constitution, I will show that the events are not just described in causal and substantive relationship but instead chosen and Law& Literature, VOL. 33, ISSUE 1, PP. 1-21. ISSN 1535-685X, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1541-2601. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2019.1688477.

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