Popular facets of constitution-making and constitution-amendment powers

Modern constitutionalism lives a moment of revival and reconsideration of constituent power not only on only related to its task to ‘create’ a constitution but also to ‘amend’ it. On the one side, the constituent power mirrors an extraordinary power to form a constitution entrenched in the people, on the other, “we, the people” are called to propose and/or approve any constitutional change. The paper aims at analyzing the role of the people in the constitution-making or constitution-amendment process in Italy, proposing an analysis of the constituent power in its capacity of primary and secondary power. In this sense, the paper scrutinizes the founding of the state under a three-layered perspective and of the modification of its constitutional design by means of the people as a constitutional authority able to create and amend a constitution.