The article is dedicated to the analysis of academic lawyers’ ideas of the late XIX and early XX centuries (A. Esmein, L. Duguit, M. Hauriou) who developed a popular sovereignty legal concept and formed the basis of constitutionalism European model. During the consideration of national sovereignty concepts of A. Esmein, L. Duguit, M. Hauriou the peculiarities of understanding the legal nature and content of popular sovereignty are established; the legal mechanisms for ensuring the principle of national sovereignty and the role of public authorities in this process are investigated; the basic forms of participation of the people in the implementation of sovereignty and their legal limits are analyzed.
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