Concluding Remarks

As I have repeatedly emphasized throughout this book, each society must answer these questions for itself in light of its own history and context. By the same token, I have also stressed that comparative analysis should not mean taking European and North American models as definitive, or expecting other societies to simply copy those successful models.

If we take the Conquest of Istanbul (1453) as a dividing line, we can see parallel but highly differentiated formations developing in Mediterranean and Western Europe on the one hand and the Ottoman Empire on the other. What characterizes the latter is the extraordinarily active and vastly heterogeneous diasporic activity that is constantly afoot on its terrain.... [If] Western Europe is not taken as a norm, the successes and vicissitudes of the Ottoman Empire can be seen as an extraordinary series of experiments to negotiate questions of ethnicity, religion, and “national” identity upon a model rather different from the emergence of nationalism in the former space. (Spivak 1993: 175–76)

Accordingly, I believe, associating modern constitutionalism with certain basic principles but not limiting their meaning to the history of their so-called “countries of origin” can provide a wider set of historical resources as well as conceptual tools for sustaining the principle itself. Moreover, constitutionalism can also be seen as constantly concerned with issues of mediating power, the progressive securing of power by the people and the process by which the agency of the people is institutionalized within structures of power that obtain in any society.

However, as illustrated with reference to the American constitution earlier, a key attribute of the modern notion of a constitution is its prescriptive and normative character, beyond its function of describing political organization in any particular society. In this modern sense, a constitution “becomes a legally binding blueprint for constructing rational society; rather than reflecting social conditions, it proposes to model them on its own image” (Preuss, 1995: 31). This dimension of constitutionalism encompasses both the process of constitution-making and the idea of shaping a society along certain lines. The earlier discussion of the contingent role of Islam in either promoting or obstructing the development and legitimization of constitutionalism in Islamic African societies is an effort to address this prescriptive and normative dimension of the subject.

To the extent that the vision reflected in any constitution is idealistic, there will necessarily be some gap between the defining ideals and the mechanisms for the actual operations of government, preservation and protection of sovereignty, or protection of rights. But there should also be some coherent relationship between the ideals sought to be achieved, such as equality, liberty or sovereignty of the people, and the processes that are guided or regulated by these ideals. In the case of Western constitutionalism, the ideals themselves can clearly be seen as part of a legacy of Enlightenment thought. At the same time, that legacy has been reflected and shaped in actual historical events such as the French Revolution of 1789 which sought to translate those ideals into practice.

In my view, the lasting value of such ideals rests in the synergy between the ideal and its practice or history. For instance, if civil rights as an ideal are constitutionally articulated and protected, they would be available to citizens as an enabling resource. The practice of various groups in using this ideal or mobilizing for their rights, in turn, expands and further entrenches the ideal in more institutional and practical terms. That practice reaffirms the value of the ideal while demonstrating its practical applicability. The point here is that if we view a constitution as a legally binding blueprint for constructing rational society (Preuss, 1995: 31), that rationality must have the necessary degree of concrete relationship with the rationality of social and cultural life. The two must fall within some common framework, whether the reference points are historical events, or current conditions and challenges facing the particular society.

This does not mean that these ideals do not have value beyond their contexts of origin or do not have any intrinsic rationality. But for the rationality of the social vision of a constitution to be effective, it must be understood and appreciated by citizens from their own frames of reference. How constitutional ideals are articulated and protected, as well as the manner and degree of their practice that is necessary for rationality to be appreciated by the citizens of a country, are the product of the historical experience of each society. As the earlier review illustrates, the political ideals of equality, liberty or sovereignty are neither interpreted in identical fashion in the American, French, and British constitutional systems, nor have they been practiced in the same way by those societies at different stages of their development. Thus, the intrinsic rationality of these concepts is linked in contextually-specific ways to the rationality (or rationalities) of the social and political fabric of each of these societies.

In the final analysis, the question is how to communicate and link the rationality of constitutional ideals with the economic, social or cultural contextual rationalities of the people concerned. With regard to African constitutionalism, this question and others raised earlier are significantly conditioned by the historical experience of colonialism and the dynamics of global political and economic power differential among different regions or countries of the world. The ultimate conclusion of the analysis presented in this book, I hope, is that constitutionalism is succeeding in African counties, each on its own terms. Since that process is necessarily contextual and its outcome contingent on a variety of factors, this book is a call for action to consolidate and promote constitutional governance in all African countries, and not for accepting the status quo as an inevitable or final situation.