ABSTRACT
Since the mid-to late 1980s, a new category of polities have come into being in various parts of the world which are the products of very deliberate processes of constitutional and political engineering. These are systems that have been born out of the collapse of previous political institutions and arrangements, all products of concerted efforts to not only construct new political orders but indeed to usher in an entirely new and radically different political era for each of the nations concerned. These are, in their own unique way, brand new democracies constructed out of the ashes of formerly non-democratic political systems. They are political systems that aim specifically to emulate the experience of the industrialised democracies of the First World, trying ceaselessly to draw themselves closer to Western Europe’s democratic tradition as well as its industrial and technological advances. In one way or another, these states have not benefited so extensively from the processes of economic advancement or political development as Western European nations have. Their attempts at attaining industrial and economic parity with the more fortunate countries have been long and intense. What sets them apart this time are efforts aimed at instituting a viable democratic system. Examples of democratic constitution building may be found throughout world history, especially in contemporary times, when liberation from the shackles of colonialism resulted in a proliferation of poor imitations of democratic constitutions in the new sovereign states of Asia and Africa. But the wave of democratisation of the 1970s and the 1980s differs from such failed experiments of the past, some of which still continue to this day. The recent wave of democratisation is much more fundamental in scope and in nature than the mere provision of constitutional procedures on paper. It is not simply political but is social and cultural as well: it involves the democratisation of social relations, cultural values, and political culture on top of democratic political institutions and practices. Whereas attempts at constitutional
engineering alone will not suffice to change the established social and political norms and mores, what has occurred in some countries since the 1980s has been a more searching re-evaluation of the basic premises on which politics have traditionally been based.
