Making a Constituent Assembly Possible in Chile: The Shifting Costs of Opposing Change

Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Escudero
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
pp. 108-137
Author(s):  
O. I. Kiyanskaya ◽  
D. M. Feldman

The analysis is focused on the pragmatics of V. Lenin’s articles ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’ [‘Partiynaya organizatsia i partiynaya literatura’] (1905) and ‘How to Ensure Success of the Constituent Assembly (on freedom of the press)’ [‘Kak obespechit uspekh Uchreditelnogo sobraniya (o svobode pechati)’] (1917). Foreign and Russian scholars alike considered the two works as components of the concept of Socialist state literature and journalism, conceived before the Soviet era. Based on examination of the political context, this work proves that Lenin was driven to write the articles by his fight for leadership in RSDRP. In 1905, Lenin obtained control over Novaya Zhizn, the newspaper under M. Gorky’s editorship, and insisted that opponents had to follow his censorship guidelines: the press had to become a propaganda tool rather than a source of income. Twelve years on, Lenin’s principles still reigned. 


Author(s):  
Anne Wolf

Chapter 6 reveals that Ennahda’s previous underground structures and wide network of sympathisers helped it to quickly gain in relevance after the 2010–11 uprisings. Yet whilst the uprisings took place in response to economic hardship and political repression, discussions in the Constituent Assembly, elected in October 2011, quickly centred on the role of Islam in society. This exposed Ennahda’s leaders to a challenging task: accounting for its frequent compromises—including on issues of religion—with secular parties, to the detriment of its more conservative grassroots, which it increasingly risked losing to the Salafis.


Author(s):  
J.S. Grewal

Of special interest to the Sikhs in the making of a new constitution were political safeguards, the issues of language, and linguistic states. In 1947 it was decided to have proportionate reservations for minorities. However, the question of safeguards for the Sikhs was postponed. A sub-committee formed in February 1948 saw no reason to make an exception in their case. In May 1949, Sardar Patel reopened the question of reservations but decided to have no reservations for any religious minority. On the issue of the official language for India, the final decision was in favour of Hindi in Devnagri script. On the issue of linguistic states, the Constituent Assembly reluctantly formed a commission which recommended that there was no need of creating linguistic states. The Constitution adopted in 1950, thus, did not satisfy any of the political aspirations of the Sikhs as a community.


1959 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-148
Author(s):  
N. Hampson

There is a sense in which all naval history is general history, since the structure and preoccupations of a State influence both the services which it demands of its fleets and the type of naval organization appropriate to their performance. This relationship is most obvious in periods of social and political revolution when the navy, like other institutions, finds itself out of harmony with the principles of the new order. Such a situation arose in France in 1789 when the Constituent Assembly set about the transformation of so many aspects of French society. The study of naval politics in the period 1789–91 consequently helps towards a fuller understanding of the Revolution as a whole. The changes introduced into the French navy form a not unimportant part of the general reconstruction of France while the debates on naval policy often throw a revealing light on the political attitudes of the protagonists.


1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel L. Negretto

This paper presents an analytical framework for the study of constitutional design from the point of view of the structure of interaction and mechanisms of institutional selection that affect the behavior and choices of the actors involved in a constitution-making process. This framework is used to explain the various limitations introduced to the powers of the President in the Argentine constitution of 1994. I argue that two levels of causation determined this reform. At the macro level, the limitation of presidential powers was the outcome of a distribution of political resources and a configuration of preferences among the actors that made possible the resolution of conflicts by means of compromise. At the micro level, the new set of institutions derived from the limited influence of the incumbent executive over constitutional design, the pluralism of the constituent assembly that approved the constitution, and the prevalence of bargaining as a mechanism of collective decision-making. Both levels of action facilitated a consensual constitution-making process from which emerged a powersharing structure that has the potential to lower the stakes of political competition for presidential office and create new rules of mutual trust between government and opposition.


2013 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald James Larson

By way of framing Manan Ahmed Asif's intriguing personal (and poetic) reflection entitled “Idol in the Archive” in this current issue of the Journal of Asian Studies, it must always be remembered that in August 1947, the old British Raj gave birth to not one but two independent nation-states, namely India and Pakistan. India became a “Sovereign Democratic Republic” when its Constitution came into effect on January 26, 1950, following adoption of its draft Constitution by its Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949. Pakistan took a bit longer, becoming the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” when its first Constitution came into effect on March 23, 1956. Furthermore, of course, Pakistan underwent secession of its Eastern Province with the founding of the “People's Republic of Bangladesh” in 1971. It is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that partition is the defining event of modern independent India and Pakistan, and, more than that, continues to be the defining event of India and Pakistan even after more than fifty years of independence.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097639962097863
Author(s):  
Krishna Prasad Pandey

Nepal and Bhutan, two Shangri-las of South Asia, share similar geo-political features but substantially differ in terms of demographic size and ethno-political history. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 which was promulgated by the second Constituent Assembly formed in 2013 came up with its inclusive character as it secured reasonable space for the ethnic minorities and owned their political, economic and cultural concerns. On the contrary, Bhutan adopted a different course in terms of accommodating ethnic and minority aspirations, although the country has also chosen parliamentary democracy in a narrow sense since 2008. From constitutional point of view, Nepal’s move from a liberal to an inclusive constitution made strenuous effort to bring all sections of Nepali society on board but Bhutan’s shift from a royal decree to an exclusionary constitution consciously left a large section of minority behind by suppressing their legitimate claims for basic democratic rights. This article explores the inclusive and exclusionary characters of the current constitutions of these countries from ethnic perspective.


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 721-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT ANDOLINA

A crucial development in current Latin American politics is the growing involvement of indigenous movements in democracies grappling with the challenges of regime consolidation. This article examines how Ecuador's indigenous movement consecrated new rights and national constitutive principles in the 1997–8 constitutional assembly. It argues that the indigenous movement defined the legitimacy and purpose of the assembly through an ideological struggle with other political actors, in turn shaping the context and content of constitutional reforms in Ecuador. The article concludes that softening the boundary between ‘cultural politics’ and ‘institutional politics’ is necessary in order to understand the impact of social movements in Latin America.


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