ABSTRACT
The political economy of any individual post-conflict or fragile state can be traced to a multitude of antecedent conditions, including the history of conflict within the country, the societal cleavages that exist within the population and the inequality in access to resources enjoyed by different groups. Some of these conditions, such as history and geography, are deeply embedded and difficult if not impossible to change, while others are more amenable to alteration and redirection. One arena in which political actors in all countries see potential for managing and possibly reshaping economic and power relations is that of formal constitutional institutions, which can be used to regulate society and have the added benefit of being relatively easy to amend. Constitutional design is thus a key tool in the armoury of those who wish to modify patterns of political economy in post-conflict settings, even when those figures are external actors not usually associated with constitution writing.
