Abstract
The article presents what it conceives as the three main constitutional theories on the Brazilian Constitution of 1988. Drawing on Partha Chatterjee, it thus presents a deconstructive approach to an important underlying distinction behind all those theories: the distinction between Civil Society and State. It claims that, in order to understand the political system in postcolonial contexts, a different distinction is needed: namely the distinction between Civil Society and Population.
Keywords:
Brazilian Constitutionalism; Postcolonialism; Critical Theory