Constitution-Making for Divided Societies: Afghanistan
Editor(s)
David S. Law
Files
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Description
This chapter begins by surveying the current literature on constitutional design constitutions for divided societies and constitutional approaches to power sharing. It pays particular attention to the view that constitutions are best understood not as contracts, but rather as coordination devices. An implication of this view for constitutional design is that, in deeply divided societies, successful coordination (and thus successful constitution-writing) may be easier to achieve if the constitution deliberately leaves certain divisive constitutional questions unresolved, with the understanding that those questions will be resolved incrementally over time. Against this theoretical background, the chapter uses the history and constitutional history of Afghanistan to illuminate the challenges of developing a constitution that can coordinate politics in a deeply divided society, and it evaluates the pros and cons of different approaches to constitutional design in such contexts.
Title of Book
Constitutionalism in Context
ISBN
9781108447652
Publication Date
2022
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
Cambridge
Keywords
Constitutional design, Afghanistan, Divided societies, Islam
Disciplines
Constitutional Law | International Law | Religion Law
Recommended Citation
Clark B. Lombardi & Pasarlay Shamshad,
Constitution-Making for Divided Societies: Afghanistan, in
Constitutionalism in Context
89
(David S. Law eds., 2022).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-chapters/38