Full Description
In its modern history, Africa has experienced different waves of constitutional ordering. The latest democratisation wave, which began in the 1990s, has set the stage over the past decade for what is now a hotly debated issue: do recent, new, or fundamentally revised constitutions truly reflect an African constitutional identity? Thoughtfully navigating a contested field, this volume brings to the fore a number of foundational questions about African constitutionalism.
Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa asks whether the concept of constitutional identity clarifies our understanding of constitutional change in Africa, including an exploration of the relationship between constitutional identity and a country's unique culture(s) and histories. Building on this, contributions examine the persistent role of colonial heritages in shaping constitutional identity in post-Independence African nations, and the question of path-dependency. Given the enduring influence of the colonial experience, the volume asks how, why, and to what end African constitutions must be 'decolonised' to form an authentic constitutional identity. This theoretical insight is supplemented and further deepened by detailed case studies of South Africa, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Egypt and their diverse experience of constitutional continuity and change.
This volume in the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law series, brings together contributions from established scholars and emerging voices on the study of constitutional processes. They provide an urgent critical analysis of existing paradigms, concepts and normative ideologies of modern African constitutionalism in the context of constitutional identity.
Contents
Introductory Remarks
Ben Nwabueze: Africa's Chequered Journey to Constitutional Democracy
Yash Ghai: Constitutional Identity
Introduction: Nico Steytler and Charles M Fombad: In Search of Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa
Part 1: Overview of Concepts and Key Issues, Colonial and Traditional Constitutional Identities and Path Dependency
1: Charles M Fombad: Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa: Concepts and Key Issues
2: George Ayittey: Constitutional Checks and Balances in Traditional Africa
3: Heinz Klug: Constitutional Identity and Traditional Authority in the Post-Colony
4: Charles M Fombad and Tresor Muhindo: The Struggle for Constitutional Identity in Francophone Africa?
5: Karl Kossler: Who are 'We, the People'? Pluralist Constitutional Identity after Democratic Transitions in African and European Countries
Part 2: Case Studies
6: Nico Steytler: A Century of South African Constitutional Identities
7: Asnake Kefale: Political Changes, Constitutional Identities and Disruptions in Contemporary Ethiopia
8: José Pina-Delgado: Rooting Constitutional Identity in African Countries without Pre-Colonial Institutional Traditions but with National Values: The Cape Verdean Experience and the Role of the Constitutional Court
9: Carlson Anyangwe and Charles M Fombad: Cameroon and the Crisis of Constitutional Identity: Is Anglophone Identity Incompatible with a Cameroonian Constitutional Identity?
10: Sherif Elgebeily: Taking Power from the People: Shifting Constitutional Identity in Egypt
Part 3: Conclusion
11: Charles M Fombad: Fostering a Sense of Constitutional Identity amid the Travails of African Constitutionalism
