PLACING THE GOVERNMENT IN FRAGILE DEMOCRACIES

The first protests of the Arab Spring began in December of 2010 in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Within a few months, the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt had been dethroned, and democratic elections and new constitutions followed in relatively short order. One of the most crucial decisions that a fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Wake Forest law review 2015-10, Vol.50 (4), p.985
Main Author: Fontana, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Constitutions
Democracy
Governmental reform
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The first protests of the Arab Spring began in December of 2010 in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Within a few months, the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt had been dethroned, and democratic elections and new constitutions followed in relatively short order. One of the most crucial decisions that a fragile democratic system designing its constitution must address is where to place national power. Constitutions usually do address where the national government will be located, simply because it is difficult to coordinate governmental actions without a consensus definition of where government convenes. The goal of this article is to sketch out very generally the different options that constitution designers have at their disposal in deciding where to locate national power and the central implications of each of these options for how representative the national government of an emerging democratic regime is likely to be.
ISSN:0043-003X