Unstable Constitutionalism: Law and Politics in South Asia

Description

Although the field of constitutional law has become increasingly comparative in recent years, its geographic focus has remained limited. South Asia, despite being the site of the world's largest democracy and a vibrant if turbulent constitutionalism, is one of the important neglected regions within the field. This book remedies this lack of attention by providing a detailed examination of constitutional law and practice in five South Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Identifying a common theme of volatile change, it develops the concept of 'unstable constitutionalism', studying the sources of instability alongside reactions and responses to it. By highlighting unique theoretical and practical questions in an underrepresented region, Unstable Constitutionalism constitutes an important step toward truly global constitutional scholarship.

Mark Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His important works in the field of comparative constitutional law include Advanced Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law (2014), The Routledge Handbook of Constitutional Law (co-edited, 2012) and the leading handbook, Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law (2009). Madhav Khosla is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, Massachusetts. He is the author of The Indian Constitution (2012) and is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Indian Constitutional Law.

'In the final analysis, Unstable Constitutionalism marks an important contribution to the burgeoning constitutional discourse on consequential courts, and the invaluable role they can and must play even in authoritarian regimes. For this reason alone, this volume should be on the must-read list of every comparative constitutional law scholar in the twenty-first century.' Po Jen Yap, International Journal of Constitutional Law