UID:
almahu_9949501409402882
Format:
1 online resource (xvi, 323 pages)
ISBN:
9780429198984
,
0429198981
,
9780429581649
,
0429581645
,
9780429579424
,
042957942X
,
9780429583544
,
0429583540
Content:
"This book interrogates the ideology and practices of liberal constitutionalism in the Zambian postcolony. The analysis focuses on the residual political and governmental effects of an imperial form of power, embodied in the person of the republican president, termed here prerogativism. Through systematic, long-term ethnographic engagement with Zambian constitutionalist activists - lawyers, judges and civic leaders - the study examines how prerogativism has shaped the postcolonial political landscape and limited the possibilities of constitutional liberalism. This is revealed in the ways that repeated efforts to reform the constitution have sidelined popular participation and thus failed to address the deep divide between a small elite stratum (from which the constitutional activists are drawn) and the marginalized masses of the population. Along the way, the study documents the intimate interpenetration of political and legal action and examines how prerogativism delimits the political engagements of elite actors. Special attention is given to the reluctance of legal activists to engage with popular politics and to the conservative ethos that undermines efforts to pursue a jurisprudence of transformational constitutionalism in the findings of the Constitutional Court"--Publisher's description.
Note:
Problems and paradoxes -- Unthinking the postcolonial state -- Constitutionalism as an ethnographic object -- Between the decision and the demos : activist lawyers and constituent power -- Imperial constitutionalism 1924-1996 -- The Oasis Forum and the emergence of liberal constitutionalism -- Excursus : redescribing postcolonial power -- 'Lawfully illegal' -- In the shadows of prerogativism -- The allure of postcolonial legality -- Decolonizing the republic -- Coda.
Additional Edition:
Print version: Gould, Jeremy, 1952- Postcolonial legality. London : Routledge, 2018 ISBN 9781472489081
Language:
English
DOI:
10.4324/9780429198984
URL:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429198984
Bookmarklink
