Constitutionalism and Ethnic Conflict The Case of Pakistan

Abstract

The role of a constitution and a constitutional order in political development
is generally not discussed in recent literature on the comparative
politics of developing societies. It is more or less taken for granted that, in
the division between developed and developing societies, the former are
identified with matwe institutions of legitimate order that provide political
stability, continuity of political authority, and established rules for conflict
settlement; the latter are characterized by the weakness or absence of such
institutions. ‘Ibis is the analytical scheme in Huntington’s now classic study,
Political Order in Changing Societies.’ In this work, there is no index entry
for “constitution,” “constitutionalism,” or “constitutional order.” The absence
of such references was not considered anomalous, for it was assumed
that constitutional practice and norms, designs and processes, were the
defining characteristics of mature developed societies. Instead of examining
the role of constitutions in the evolution of developing societies, comparative
political studies like Huntington’s focused on the polity’s structural
foundations and the functional nature of political organizations. Huntington
claimed that the difference between developed and developing societies was
not in the form, but rather in the degree, of government. Constitutionalism,
the study of constitutions in the workings of a mature political system, in this
view, rightly belongs to examining the various forms of political systems
available in the modem world. Conversely, his study implied, efficacy or
degree of government did not follow from the adoption of a constitution in
the making of political order in a developing society.
Recent events in Europe, beginning with the disintegration of the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, raise once again questions of ethnicity,
nationalism, and political development. For much of the second half of the
twentieth century, these were seen as problems pertinent to the developing
societies of Africa, Asia, and South America and only of comparative ...