Freedom and authority in modern constitutionalism

The aim of this work is to investigate the evolution of the relationship between freedom and authority in the genesis and development of modern constitutionalism. More precisely, the paper traces the salient stages of the process of constitutionalization of democratic systems, focusing on the texture of a principle, such as that of the functionalization of authority to the guarantee of freedom, which will be fully implemented in the constitutional state of law. A principle which, however, risks being cracked by the process of cyber globalization, as a result of which there has been a transformation of the political-legal categories of statehood and, consequently, the relationship between freedom and authority, at least until the second half of the twentieth century. As evident, what occurred at the dawn of the 21st century is a scenario that borders on numerous profiles of criticality, especially if one considers that the protection of the person appears to be now subjugated by the new global forces, prey to a system that has erected the myth of technocentrism on the remains of anthropocentrism. In light of the above, the reflection focuses on the need to give a new order to the global (dis)order, placing the person at the centre of the global network of powers; in other words, the need to re-establish the constitutionalist link of instrumentality between power and person, and therefore between authority and freedom, which has been overwhelmed by the impetuous development of technocratic domination, by enslaving the person to the increase of power. The knot seems crucial, not only because it aims to restore a new and different centrality to the human person, but also, and above all because it questions the continuing relevance of the paradigm of the constitutional state of law, whether this may still be the institutional form of reference for the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the person.