![]() ![]() ![]() Although it was a contradictory and incomplete movement, it nevertheless fed into the Persian and Ottoman constitutional revolutions (19 respectively), giving rise to a genuinely democratic experiment in most of the Middle East, thereby bequeathing a political legacy of capital importance to the twentieth century – a legacy which has undergone a certain political resurgence since the events of the “Arab Spring”. It is thus linked to the emergence of democratic institutions and ideas such as citizenship, political representation, and the separation of powers – and is related to the Republican and liberal tendencies within Western political philosophy. Constitutionalism may however be taken in a broader sense, in which it is the main vehicle for redefining politics in line with the principles of popular sovereignty. It was thus closely correlated to attempts to establish an administration based on rational and legal principles which marked the transformation of the State in the Middle East. ![]() In purely legalistic terms, it promoted a system of regulations in which political power was both legitimised and limited by the law. Constitutionalism developed as a worldwide political movement over the course of the nineteenth century, making its impact felt in the Middle East, particularly in the Ottoman Empire 1. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |