Founding moments are landmark events that break ties with the ancien régime and lay the foundation for the establishment of a new constitutional order. They are often radically disruptive episodes in the life of a state. They reshape national law, reset political relationships, establish future power structures, and influence happenings in neighbouring countries. This edited collection brings together leading and emerging scholars to theorise the phenomenon of a founding moment. What is a founding moment? When does the 'founding' process begin and when does it end? Is a founding moment possible without yielding a new constitution? Can a founding moment lead to a partial or incomplete transformation? And should the state be guided by the intentions of those who orchestrated these momentous breaks from the past? Drawing from constitutions around the world, the authors ask these and other fundamental questions about making and remaking constitutions.

This volume addresses the idea of origins, how things are formed, and how they relate to their present and future in terms of 'constitution-making' which is a continuous process in South Asian states. It examines the drafting, nature, core values and roles of the first modern constitutions during the founding of the eight modern nation-states in South Asia. The book looks at the constitutions of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It provides an explanatory description of the process and substantive inputs in the making of the first constitutions of these nations; it sets out to analyse the internal and external (including intra-regional) forces surrounding the making of these constitutions; and it sets out theoretical constructions of models to conceptualise the nature and role of the first constitutions (including constituent documents) in the founding of the modern nation-states and their subsequent impact on state-building in the region.

In reexamining John Adams's political thought, Thompson reconstructs the contours and influences of Adams's mental universe, the ideas he challenged, the problems he considered central to constitution-making, and methods of his reasoning.

With its detailed and wide-ranging explorations in history, philosophy, and law, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the Constitution ought to be interpreted and what it means to live under a constitutional government."--BOOK JACKET.

Known as the Father of His Country, George Washington is sometimes viewed as a demi-god for what he was and did, rather than for what he thought. In addition to being a popular icon for the forces of American nationalism, he served as commander-in-chief of the victorious Continental Army. That he played a key role in securing the adoption of the Constitution is well known, but few credit him with a political philosophy that actively shaped the constitutional tradition.

This book brings together two themes of enormous current intellectual and emotional impact: democracy and its institutional forms and the globalization of economic, social and cultural affairs. The volume pursues the meaning of transnational democracy through an examination of the sources of novel democratic potential at multiple levels, from the local to the global. To a very great extent, this task depends upon a critical analysis of state and nation formation, state-level democratization and transnational social movement emergence.In engaging these complex issues, the authors find themselves drawn into intellectual and geographic territories as diverse as European institutional and intellectual history, North American and European trade agreements, Canadian constitutionalism, African state-society relations and debates regarding the democratic peace. While the coverage is global in its attention to transnational institutions and international non-governmental organizations for instance, it is also genuinely regional, as it seeks out - and critically assesses - the potential building blocks for a more appropriately democratic future in the varied forms that the institutionalization of globalization assumes around the world.