Modeling the State : Postcolonial Constituitions in Asia and Africa(<Special Issue>State Formation in Comparative Perspectives)

Abstract

This essay examines the independence constitutions of Asia and Africa in the twentieth century through a macro-comparative lens. The examination focuses upon the intra-imperial isomorphic thesis which proposes that newly independent countries, in formulating their constitutions, merely imitated the constitutional form of their former mother country. I find that while independent constitutions indeed imitated the constitutions of their former mother country, this mimicry was neither universal nor whole scale. It occurred foremost in terms of the constitutional provisions for governmental system. Conversely, at least half of the independence constitutions in Asia and Africa had provisions for religion, rights, and/or political parties that ran counter to the constitutional model of the former mother country. These countervailing tendencies to the logic of intra-imperial isomorphism reveal crucial trans-imperial influences on the making of modern postcolonial constitutions.