Democracy between experimentalism and populism Roberto Frega (Forthcoming in Contemporary Pragmatism ) Brian Butler’s new book weaves together expertise in constitutional theory with a pragmatist background. The connecting link is provided by the pragma- tist theory of democratic experimentalism, to which Butler had already devoted an edited book (Butler, 2013). The book’s starting point is the priority of democracy, conceived in pragmatist terms as a method and as an end. Butler presses his pragmatist insight to an interpretation of constitutionalism which demands a rather radical reconstruction of received views about constitutional theory and constitutional legal practice. The two dimensions are intentionally distinguished and combined, as in true pragmatist spirit Butler’s way of pro- ceeding addresses at the same time the general theory of constitutionalism and its practical counterpart in the concrete proceedings of constitutional courts. My perspective in critically reviewing and commenting Butler’s book will be from the standpoint of democratic experimentalism. I will therefore begin with a quick reconstruction of this theoretical approach, so as to give the reader a broader perspective on the book (section 1). I will then discuss some of the im- plications of democratic experimentalism for legal theory (section 2), and then proceed to highlight some possible problems that arise from Butler’s interpreta- tion of the political meaning of the constitutional branch of democratic regimes (section 3). Pragmatism as democratic experimentalism Democratic experimentalism denotes a complex and heterogeneous approach in philosophy and the social sciences whose seminal ideas are to be found in the works of classical American pragmatists. In broad terms, democratic experimen- talism is the result of the encounter of European philosophy and social theory with the unique social, economic, and political conditions that characterized the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Of particular importance was the sense of social fluidity and rapid change brought about by modernity in a context freed from traditional forms of social organization. As the German sociologist Hans-Joachim Schubert has noted, this experience of openness, flu- idity, variation is clearly reflected in the unique traits of American social theory, and largely accounts for the major differences with European social theory at 1