Seeking Viable Grassroots Representation Mechanisms In African Constitutions

In this book Charles Mwalimu explores viable grassroots representation mechanisms in African constitutions in order to positively integrate indigenous and modern systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. A comparative study method is used to examine the constitutional principles of chieftaincy and local government and their impact on human rights. To establish and prove lack of positive integration Mwalimu connects this failure to poor constitutionalism, development and stultified growth and human rights violations. This book proposes remedial actions to build nondiscriminatory constitutional regimes eradicating violations of human rights.

v. 1 Dynamic jurisprudential thought --

A Theory of African Constitutionalism asks and seeks to answer why we need a new theoretical framework for African constitutionalism and how this could offer us better theoretical and practical tools with which to understand, improve, and assess African constitutionalism on its own terms. By locating constitutional studies in Africa within the experiences, interactions, and contestations of power and governance beginning in precolonial times, the book presents the development and transformation of African constitutional systems across time and place, along with the attendant constitutional designs and practices ranging from the nature and operation of the African state to its vertical and horizontal government structures, to its constitutional rights regime. This title offers both a theoretically and comparatively rich, historically and contextually informed, and temporally and spatially extensive account of the nature, travails, and incremental successes of African constitutionalism with detailed case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. A Theory of African Constitutionalism provides scholars, policymakers, governments, and constitution builders in Africa and beyond with new insights for reimagining the purpose, substance, and scope of constitutions and constitutionalism.

This work is the third Small Wars Journal anthology focusing on radical Sunni Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups. It covers this professional journal’s writings for 2015 and complements the earlier Global Radical Islamist Insurgency anthologies that were produced as Vol. I: 2007–2011 (published in 2015) and Vol. II: 2012–2014 (published in 2016). This anthology, which offers roughly five hundred pages of additional analysis, follows the same general conceptual breakdown as the earlier works, and is divided into two major thematic sections—one focusing on jihadi terrorism, insurgency, and the Islamic State in context and the other focusing on US-allied policy and counter-jihadi and counter–Islamic State strategies.

Much of the credit for this open-access book should go to Bilal Kargi, the Editor of KSP Journals and KSP Books. KSP Journals has published several of my articles on economics and diplomatic history, including in the Journal of Economics Library, the Journal of Economics and Political Economy, the Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences and the Journal of Economic and Social Thought. Bilal asked me in late summer 2021 if I would put these articles and others that had appeared elsewhere, or that I might want to publish for the first time, into a collection. I told him I would consider it – noting that past articles would need revisions if they were to appear again, and to have a longer shelf-life. I heard back from him within a day or two advising me that he was “waiting impatiently” for my Word updates. The collection here also includes “A different Cold War? The European Settlement of 1963 and Aftermath” and “Inflation Policy, 2022: Background,” both of which I have prepared during the last few months.

Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity offers a comprehensive analysis of the issues associated with the theory and practice of constitutionalism in Islamic countries. This collection of essays is written by leading constitutional and comparative law scholars and constitutional practitioners and essays provide readers with an overview of the constitutional developments in countries in the Islamic world, an understanding of the potential and actual impact of Islam and Sharia on the notion of modern constitutionalism, and insight into the ways in which "Western" ideals may be reconciled with Islamic tradition.

Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.

Constitution making is a topic of increasing scholarly and practical interest. Focusing on a set of important case studies, yet also featuring classic articles on the subject, this volume is a critical assembly of theoretical literature. Ensuring wide geographic and historical coverage, and including an original introduction by the editors, this collection provides an essential overview of the myriad of circumstances in which constitutions can be made.