With the positivity of law and the parallel development of the positivity of purposes, the decision-making organization of the state can be made, in a true sense, sovereign. The state's powers too must then be organized in a reflexive way. Ways of overpowering power-holders and forms of legitimate change of power must be institutionalized. Only when the overpowering of power is assured can the potential of power be increased without hesitation.

XREF: Connects to theories of constitutionalism and the paradox of sovereign power — how binding power to law paradoxically increases its strength, echoing ideas from Weber and modern rule-of-law scholarship.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 251