Lucia Rubinelli

Bio

Lucia Rubinelli is Assistant Professor of Political Science. Before joining Yale, she held positions as Junior Research Fellow in the History of Political Thought at the University of Cambridge, Robinson College and as Fellow in Political Theory at the London School of Economics.

Her primary research interests include the history of nineteenth and twentieth century European political thought, democratic theory, and constitutional theory.

Her first book Constituent power. A History (CUP, Ideas in Context, 2020) explores the variety of ways in which the principle of popular power has been articulated during the French Revolution and after. It offers a history of the language of constituent power in relation to ideas of national and popular sovereignty. It traces how Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès’ first theorization of constituent power has been used and misused by subsequent theorists, among whom Carl Schmitt, legal scholars in the post-war period, and Hannah Arendt. It discusses how constituent power was used to justify radically democratic and liberal institutions alike: universal suffrage, referenda, constitutional courts, imperative mandates, workers’ councils, and federal systems. The result is a history portraying constituent power as a distinctive way of conceiving the foundational principle and the institutional structure of modern democracy, as it emerged out of the contested politics of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe.

Lucia’s current research project is titled Democracy, Simple. Experiments in Democratic Theory during the French Second Republic, and offers an account of the competing theories of democracy that developed during the French Second Republic (1848-1852). This was a key moment in the history of democracy: the first regime to introduce universal male suffrage, abolishing it after two years, only to restore it a year later to secure popular support for Louis Napoleon’s coup. Through all this turmoil, democratic theory flourished. The experience of trial and error, success and failure, making and unmaking of republican institutions forced thinkers into questioning the meaning of democracy, as well as its core institutional features. If universal suffrage was not enough to protect democracy, let alone fully realize it, then what would it take to theorize and establish a truly democratic republic? The book analyzes four different answers. Utopian socialists defended a vision of democracy as demanding direct popular legislation; caesarist thinkers theorized democracy as an ever-expanding private sphere, secured by a plebiscitary leader; proponents of Comtian positivism believed that democracy demanded the rule of experts and advocated a dictatorial triumvirate applying the ‘science of society’; and liberal-constitutionalism defended the separation of power and the normative superiority of the constitution. In reconstructing the logic and context of these competing theories of democracy, the book argues that the archive of the Second Republic showcases in nuce the tensions and challenges that have faced democracy ever since its modern inception and that still confront it today.

Lucia is co-editor of and contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power (February 2026). She is a regular guest on Past Present Future Podcast (hosted by David Runciman), where she discusses themes adjacent to her research and to the history of ideas. Before, she was often on the Talking Politics Podcast (also hosted by David Runciman), to cover Italian politics. She has been interviewed by the New Books Network podcast, Diritti Comparati blog, Toqueville21 and the Intellectual History Archive about her book. She has written for The New York Times and for Prospect Magazine. She has been interviewed by the BBC, Information, NPR about Italian politics.

Contact

115 Prospect Street, Rosenkranz Hall, Room 305
New Haven, CT 06511
lucia.rubinelli@yale.edu

Education

• PhD, Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, 2017
• M2 Recherche, Etudes Politiques, EHESS, Paris, 2013
• MSc Socio-Legal Studies, LSE, London, 2012.
• BA International Studies, Università di Trieste, 2011.

Publications

• Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power, Oxford University Press, February 2026. Editor with Markus Patberg and Peter Niesen. 
• Constituent Power: A History.  Cambridge University Press, Ideas in Context Series, 2020 (Paperback 2023).

Articles

• “The Shortest way to democracy. Debates about the referendum and socialist democratic theory in the late nineteenth century”, Law and History Review, forthcoming and part of a special issue co-edited with Duncan Kelly on “Plebiscites in the Twentieth Century”. 
• “Democracy and direct legislation during the French Second Republic”, Modern Intellectual History, Volume 21, Issue 4, 2024, 783-806. 
• “Elites, democracy and parties in the Italian Constituent debates, 1946-1947”, part of the special section on Parties, Elites and Democracy, Constellations, June 2020.
• “Costantino Mortati and the idea of material constitution”, History of Political Thought, Vol. 40, Issue 3, 2019, 515-546.
• “Sieyes versus bicameralism”, The Review of Politics, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 2019, 255-279.  Citation/Abstract.
• “Taming sovereignty: constituent power in nineteenth century French political thought”, History of European Ideas, Vol. 44, Issue 1, 2018, 60-74.
• “How to think beyond sovereignty: Emmanuel Sieyes on constituent power”, European Journal of Political Theory, April 2016, 1-21.

Invited Exchanges

• “Constituent power and its institutions”, editor and contributor to invited Critical Exchange, Contemporary Political Theory, Volume 20, 2021, 926–956.
• “Constituent Power: A response to critics”, Verfassungsblog: On Matters Constitutional, 2021. 
• “Democracy and sovereignty”, afterword to the foreword by Neil Walker, “The sovereignty surplus”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2021, 28-33.
• “The Italian state, its regions and the virus”, The Political Quarterly, Volume 91, Issue 3, 2020, 553-560.

Book Chapters

• “Plebiscitary Democracy”, in De Gruyter Handbook of Democratic Theory, ed. Lafont, C., Urbinati, N., Ragazzoni, D., De Gruyter, forthcoming 2026 (4000 words).
• “Constituent power and democracy in early twentieth century France”, in Niesen, P., Patberg M. and Rubinelli L., The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power, OUP, forthcoming February 2026, (7000 words).
• “Parliamentarism, democracy and the referendum in Europe, 1890-1940”, in Meckstroth, C. and Moyn, S., The Cambridge History of Democracy, CUP, forthcoming (8000 words).
• “The material constitution according to Costantino Mortati” in Goldoni, M. and Wilkinson, M., The Cambridge Handbook on the Material Constitution, CUP, 2023, 89-99.
• “Of post-men and democracy” in Marquez, X., ed., Democratic Moments, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, 97-105.

Reviews and Essays

• “Il Giardino alla francese”, by Cristina Cassina, Modern European History, forthcoming 2025, (1000 words).
• “Sharing Freedom” by Geneviève Rousselière, History of European Ideas, forthcoming 2025, (1000 words).
• “Constituent Power and the Law”, by Joel Colon-Rios and “Constituent Power in the European Union”, by Markus Patberg, Constellations, vol 30, issue 4, 2023, 479-482.
• “Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy” by Lisa Disch, The Review of Politics, 2023, 1-3.
• “Can constitutions make democracy?”, review essay of Khosla, M., India’s founding moment, Global Intellectual History, 2021, 86-90.
• “Electoral laws, equality and inclusivity in 19th century Britain”, review essay of Conti, G., Parliament the mirror of the nation (CUP, 2019), round table for H-Diplo, May 2020.
• “Is parliamentarism compatible with democracy?”, review essay of Selinger, W., Parliamentarism: from Burke to Weber (CUP, 2019), book forum for Toqueville 21.
• “L’historie de la souveraineté populaire et Brexit”, review of Tuck, R., The Sleeping Sovereignty (CUP, 2016), Revue Française de Science Politique, March 2018, 21-22.

In Progress

• “Democracy, Parliamentarism and the Referendum”, Revise and Resubmit, Political Theory.
• “Simple democracy”, article manuscript in preparation.
• “Reform, Revolution or the Referendum? Giuseppe Rensi and the importance of direct democracy for socialism, 1893-1902”, article manuscript in preparation

Currently Teaching at Yale

• PLSC 2351: Socialist Political Ideas
• DRSTD 006: Directed Studies, History and Politics Track