Constituent Assemblies

Jon Elster, Roberto Gargarella, Vatsal Naresh, Bjørn Erik Rasch

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781108427524
• eBook ISBN: 9781108608695
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Public Law
• Index: Law

Comparative constitutional law has a long pedigree, but the comparative study of constitution-making has emerged and taken form only in the last quarter-century. While much of the initial impetus came from the study of the American and French constituent assemblies in the late eighteenth century, this volume exemplifies the large comparative scope of current research. The contributors discuss constituent assemblies in South East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, and in Nordic countries. Among the new insights they provide is a better understanding of how constituent assemblies may fail, either by not producing a document at all or by adopting a constitution that fails to serve as a neutral framework for ordinary politics. In a theoretical afterword, Jon Elster, an inspirational thinker on the current topic, offers an analysis of the micro-foundations of constitution-making, with special emphasis on the role of crises-generated passions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Constitution Making in the Context of Plural Societies
• 2 Constituent Assemblies in Democratic Regimes
• 3 Constituent Assemblies and Political Continuity in Divided Societies
• 4 Constituent Assembly Failure in Pakistan and Nepal
• 5 Precautions in a Democratic Experiment
• 6 A Race against Time
• 7 Chain of Legitimacy
• 8 Constitution Making and Legislative Involvement in Government Formation
• 9 The Political Psychology of Constitution Making
• Index