Ethnic Politics and the Making and Unmaking of Constitutions in Africa

The crisis of governance and wave of democratization that swept Africa over the past twenty years was accompanied by repeated efforts to revise national constitutions. With blame for civil conflicts placed on Africa's ethnic diversity, a lengthy debate ensued among Western political scientists over whether integration or accommodation of ethnic communities should guide constitutional reform. However, understanding of the process of institutional technology transfer was undermined by a misconception of African ethnicity as fixed "primordial loyalties" rather than as dynamic political and social constructs that are actively shaped by state institutions. Instead, actual constitutions contain a variety of painfully negotiated forms of integration and accommodation that in specific national contexts have either dampened ethnic politics or produced new forms of conflict. This special issue looks at three important cases of ethnic politics and constitutional reform: two qualified successes (Nigeria and South Africa) and one dramatic failure (Kenya).