Lesotho is rather different from most other African countries. For starters, it is a kingdom, which preserves a traditional hierarchy and customs, and its population consists of one fairly homogenous ethnic group, although admittedly there are differences and occasional rifts within it. Then, it is a landlocked country, completely surrounded by South Africa on which is depends heavily. Economically, it has not been doing particularly well, this partly because the country is so poorly endowed by nature, and its people often eke out a living abroad. Politically, there have been ups and downs, the downs fortunately lying in the past, with Lesotho doing somewhat better since the latest elections. Socially and culturally, as hinted, it is quite unique and this can be gathered from reading the book. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Lesotho covers the full scope of Lesotho’s ancient, colonial, and independence eras. It gives greater emphasis to the more recent period and brings the book fully up-to-date. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on civil society, key events, leaders, governmental, international, religious, and other private organizations, policies, political movements and parties, economic elements, and many other areas that have shaped the country’s trajectory. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Lesotho.

A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the Founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption—a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation. When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and—over time—how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.

1.2 A new momenttim

"That judicial institutions are important for emerging democracies leaves little (if any) room for debate. But to what extent do judiciaries in these new democracies maintain their autonomy? And what accounts for varying levels of autonomy across states? Drawing on the cases of Malawi, Zambia, and Namibia - and offering a novel analytical framework - Peter VonDoepp illuminates why power holders behave as they do toward the courts." "VonDoepp considers whether and why political leaders have respected or undermined judicial autonomy in each of the three cases. He also addresses how the courts themselves have shaped executive-judicial relations. His findings present unexpected challenges for existing frameworks, as well as important lessons about the factors and conditions affecting judicial development in transitional states."--BOOK JACKET.

Swaziland—recently renamed Eswatini—is the only nation-state in Africa with a functioning indigenous political system. Elsewhere on the continent, most departing colonial administrators were succeeded by Western-educated elites. In Swaziland, traditional Swazi leaders managed to establish an absolute monarchy instead, qualified by the author as benevolent and people-centred, a system which they have successfully defended from competing political forces since the 1970s. This book is the first to study the constitutional history of this monarchy. It examines its origins in the colonial era, the financial support it received from white settlers and apartheid South Africa, and the challenges it faced from political parties and the judiciary, before King Sobhuza II finally consolidated power in 1978 with an auto-coup d’état. As Hlengiwe Dlamini shows, the history of constitution-making in Swaziland is rich, complex, and full of overlooked insight for historians of Africa.

An Economist Best Book of the Year How India’s Constitution came into being and instituted democracy after independence from British rule. Britain’s justification for colonial rule in India stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. And the empire did its best to ensure this was the case, impoverishing Indian subjects and doing little to improve their socioeconomic reality. So when independence came, the cultivation of democratic citizenship was a foremost challenge. Madhav Khosla explores the means India’s founders used to foster a democratic ethos. They knew the people would need to learn ways of citizenship, but the path to education did not lie in rule by a superior class of men, as the British insisted. Rather, it rested on the creation of a self-sustaining politics. The makers of the Indian Constitution instituted universal suffrage amid poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. They crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian Constitution—the longest in the world—came into effect. More than half of the world’s constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries characterized by low levels of economic growth and education, where voting populations are deeply divided by race, religion, and ethnicity. And these countries have democratized at once, not gradually. The events and ideas of India’s Founding Moment offer a natural reference point for these nations where democracy and constitutionalism have arrived simultaneously, and they remind us of the promise and challenge of self-rule today.