Popular sovereignty and popular participation: Mixed constitutional democracy in the Third World

Abstract

In the contemporary era, constitutional legitimacy is based solely on the notion of popular sovereignty. The extraordinary movement for democratisation in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Far East and Africa has been energised by popular participation. But neither by definition, nor by causal relation, does popular participation necessarily produce popular sovereignty. In recent times, popular involvement has frequently been a direct response to tyrannical regimes that persistently refused to submit to popular accountability. In many countries, at least for a brief moment, members of all classes and groups found themselves sufficiently empowered to undermine authoritarian rulers. The astonishing discovery that mass participation could actually help topple governments hitherto impervious to the demands of their own people has made popular involvement in government the starting point for reconstructing political order in many countries. These events have enabled the idea that participation transcending class, ethnic, regional and even religious cleavages could become a basis for constitutional government in the third world today. But these outbursts of mass political energy, though brave and commendable, will not in themselves reform the underlying structural conditions that led to authoritarian rule in the first place. The prospect for reasonably equal empowerment for all social classes in situations of extreme inequality is also highly contingent. To assume these obstacles are insuperable would falsely betray the unprecedented openings that democratisation is providing in scores of Third World countries. To ignore them would leave the new constitutions less responsive to inevitable future challenges. The important issue is to consider whether a blend of constitutional approaches-differing in particulars from one country to another-could receive sufficient political support from government officials and social groups making up a populace already aware of its appreciable impact in changing the political regime. Popular participation-boycotts, strikes, mass assemblies-has been a factor in the abandonment in some countries of one-party rule, the introduction of competitive elections and, to the surprise of observers, even peaceful change in heads of government in, among other states, South Korea, Czechoslovakia, Benin, Zambia and the Cape Verde Islands. In many other states, however, the original 'popular