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Bert C.G.J. van Roermund, "Legislative voices. A Rousseauist Note on Legal Pluralism", in Hanneke van Schooten, ed., Semiotics and Legislation. Jurisprudential, Institutional and Sociological Perspectives, 109-121: How many voices are to be heard when the democratic legislator speaks? Some will say: one. Others will say: countless. This paper argues: two. From a philosophical point of view, the thesis that the legislator speaks with two voices is the only feasible account of legislation, as well as of what is sometimes called legal pluralism. First, I briefly sketch the semiotic problem of 'voices' in legislation; how it relates to the issue of 'legal pluralism', and to both the lawyer's and the sociologist's answers to my initial question. Then I will turn to Rousseau who, in his Social Contract (1762), confronts us with the picture of two legislators - the sovereign and the genius -entertaining a most curious relationship in order to bring about a well-established state under the rule of law. I will try to show that his doctrine of popular sovereignty implies a new account of government; an account that entails, on the basis of a semiotic analysis of reflexive self-reference, the two-pitched legislative voice which I think can solve the conceptual problem bound up with 'legal pluralism'. e-mail: G.C.G.J.vanRoermund@kub.nl

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