Constituting Constitutionalism

Nathan Brown looks at the constitutions that were drafted in Arab countries after 2011 through the prism of the ‘new constitutionalism’, which emphasizes the need for democratic and participatory processes and has recently gained traction among constitutionalists. Instead of focusing on the actual texts that were produced, Brown looks at the peculiar circumstances in which those constitutions were written and explains how, in the chaotic context of ‘passionate reality’ which characterizes transitions, certain procedural choices were made (or imposed) that greatly affected the outcome.