Conflict, Power, And The Landscape Of Constitutionalism

The backdrop to the book a comparative study of several countries across three continents is the understanding that every good constitution rigorously separates the legislature, executive and judiciary from one another to guarantee the independence of each of these powers, such that this separation results in life, liberty and security. However, the constitution also symbolises and produces power. As such constitutionalism as a political culture of laws should therefore explain the dynamics of power. In viewing the constitutions together with the societies in which they emerge, this study shows how institutional practices originating from a legal text create a matrix of power that owes its life neither to a contract between men, nor between the state and men, nor even between the society and men, but rather to relations established, organised, and formalised by laws. It seeks to invetigate how power acts on power, and is a revealing account of how the theory of separation is both a myth and a reality.-
About Author :
Giles Tarabout is Senior Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a member of the Centre of Indian and South Asian Studies, Paris. He has been Director of the South Asia programme of collaboration in the Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Foundation Maison des Sciences de I'Homme (Paris), Scientific Director for anthropological research at CNRS, and Visiting Professor at the University Paris X-Nanterre. Ranabir Samadar is Director, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, and has been vitally involved in initiating peace studies programmes in South Asia. He has worked extensively on issues of justice and rights in the context of conflicts in South Asia. His specific research focuses on migration and refugee studies, the theory and practices of dialogue, nationalism and post-colonial statehood in South Asia, and technological restructuring and new labour regimes.
Contents :
Introduction Constitution-Making in the Process of Decolonisation The Exception and the Rule: On French Colonial Law Law and Terror in the Age of Constitution-Making The Citizen and the Subject: A Post-Colonial Constitution for the European Union? The Silent Erosion: Anti-Terror Laws and Shifting Contours of Jurisprudence in India The Post-Communist Revolution in Russia and the Genesis of Representative Democracy The Acts and Factes of Women's Autonomy in India The Limits of Constitutional Law: Public Policies and the Constitution Regulation of the Particular and its Socio-Political Effects Constitutionalism in Pakistan Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index