The Ideological Dimensionality in the Middle Eastern and North African Constitutions: A New Era in the Evolution of Islamic Constitutionalism
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920912943 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920912943
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) 209 –226
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920912943
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The Ideological Dimensionality
in the Middle Eastern and
North African Constitutions:
A New Era in the Evolution
of Islamic Constitutionalism
Berna Öney
Abstract
The popular movements in 2011 led to many regime changes that resulted in amended or new
constitutions in the Middle East and North Africa region. The constitutional debates concentrated
mainly on the functions of the constitutions in authoritarian regimes, constitution-making
processes, and the role of Islam during and after the uprisings. However, no research has analyzed
the ideological dimensionality of the Middle Eastern and North African constitutions. By analyzing
19 newly enacted, drafted, and amended constitutions before and after the popular movements
in the region, this article shows that the single ideological dimension in the constitutions can
be defined by the openness of a state for liberal and modern values. This ideological dimension
encompasses all the regional political debates on the political regime dynamics, the inclusion
of rights and liberties, and the role of Islam. Besides offering an alternative typology for the
constitutions in the region, this article also provides evidence for the beginning of the fourth phase
of Islamic constitutionalism that merges the ideas of rule of law, which originates from democratic
notions, and Islamic norms.
Keywords
Islamic constitutionalism, ideological dimensionality, constitutions in authoritarian regimes,
Middle East
Accepted: 25 February 2020
Introduction
The popular movements for democracy, which cascaded across the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) region almost a decade ago, have led to three consequences for the
existing regimes: (1) the perpetuation of authoritarianism, (2) the initiation of civil wars,
Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
Corresponding author:
Berna Öney, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Ammerlaender
Heerstraße 114-118, Building A6, Oldenburg 26129, Germany.
Email: berna.oeney@uni-oldenburg.de
912943PSW0010.1177/1478929920912943Political Studies ReviewÖney
research-article2020
Article
210 Political Studies Review 19(2)
and (3) the birth of democratic regimes. Although the consequences of these popular
movements for the regimes might differ, the political debates in almost all of the MENA
countries have crystallized around the issue of constitution-making.
The scope of constitutional changes varies depending on the costs of repression for
regime survival. Some of the republics in which the uprisings resulted in overthrowing
the dictators, such as Tunisia and Egypt, enacted new constitutions in 2014, whereas oth-
ers that fell into civil war, such as Yemen and Syria, have drafted several constitutions
without reaching any agreements so far. By the same token, the constitutional and abso-
lute monarchies of Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco amended their constitutions in order to
prevent a possible political rupture in the ruling coalition. However, the absolute monar-
chies of Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia conceded some constitutional reforms, intending
to buy off the dissent through redistributing the rent.
Some MENA countries, including non-Arab Iran and Turkey, have either had no
political imperatives to engage in constitutional debates or enacted new constitutions
for other reasons, although those countries have also been affected by the uprisings to
a certain extent. On one hand, the constitutions of Kuwait (reinstated in 1992) and of
Iran (enacted in 1989) have remained intact, whereas the constitutions of Lebanon and
of United Arab Emirates were amended, respectively, in 2004 and 2009, before the
uprisings. On the other hand, Iraq enacted a new constitution in 2005 and Turkey’s new
constitution, which introduced a presidential system, was approved through a national
referendum in 2017.
Constitutions are the most important written political text regarding the guiding
principles of a state and regulation of state–society relations. Besides justifying the
state ideology and legitimizing the political regime, the constitutional premises pro-
vide insights about the state’s capability of engaging repression (Davenport, 1996), its
ability to promote democracy (Eisenstadt et al., 2015), and its constituent ideology
(Law, 2016).
During and after the Arab Uprisings, many studies devoted attention to the process of
constitution-drafting, mainly with a special focus on Tunisia and Egypt (Cross and Sorens,
2015; Jamal and Kensicki, 2016). Some scholars have engaged in a debate about the role
of Islam in the new constitutions and the possibility of a democratic future (Fadel, 2013;
Lombardi, 2013b), while others questioned the functionality of constitutions in authori-
tarian regimes (Ginsburg and Simpser, 2014). However, no research has concentrated on
the issue of the ideological dimension of the MENA constitutions or provided a typology
based on constitution-as-form.
In this study, the main aim is to explore the constitutional forms and extract the ideo-
logical dimensionality in the constitutions of the MENA region. In order to examine the
forms of the constitutions that either lay the foundations for authoritarian regimes or envi-
sion more democratic regimes, I compare 19 constitutions of 17 MENA countries. By
employing quantitative text analysis—Wordfish—I test the three hypotheses regarding
the ideological dimensionality of the MENA constitutions and conclude that these hypoth-
eses are not mutually exclusive.
The article begins by explaining the trends and gaps in the constitution analyses and
the ideological dimension in constitutions. It then examines three alternative kinds of
literature and forms hypotheses based on them. After introducing the data and empirical
strategy, the “Results and Discussion” section provides information on the Wordfish
results and discusses the implications. The final section summarizes the findings and
emphasizes the article’s contribution.
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