The concept of revolution as a key to comparison. Ackerman's 'revolutionary constitutions' and Gramsci's 'passive revolutions'

The essay explores Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘passive revolution’ as a historical interpretative criterion and develops a comparison with Bruce Ackerman’s idea of ‘revolutionary constitutions’. Gramsci’s thought is contextualized and appreciated in light of renown Gramscian scholarship. The ambivalences of passive revolution as a revolution from above and as a progressive-regressive revolution are underlined, as well as complex relations between revolution and hegemony. In order to carry out a comparative inquiry, Gramsci’s reading is applied to constitutional experiences that the Italian political thinker and activist could not consider (or considered only marginally), but are key to Ackerman’s analysis. Commonalities and differences between Gramsci’s approach and Ackerman’s theory of constitutional pathways are then discussed.