This book interrogates the ideology and practices of liberal
constitutionalism in the Zambian postcolony. The analysis focuses on the
residual political and governmental effects of an imperial form of
power, embodied in the person of the republican president, termed here
prerogativism. Through systematic, long-term ethnographic engagement
with Zambian constitutionalist activists - lawyers, judges and civic
leaders - the study examines how prerogativism has shaped the
postcolonial political landscape and limited the possibilities of
constitutional liberalism. This is revealed in the ways that repeated
efforts to reform the constitution have sidelined popular participation
and thus failed to address the deep divide between a small elite stratum
(from which the constitutional activists are drawn) and the marginalized
masses of the population. Along the way, the study documents the
intimate interpenetration of political and legal action and examines how
prerogativism delimits the political engagements of elite actors.
Special attention is given to the reluctance of legal activists to
engage with popular politics and to the conservative ethos that
undermines efforts to pursue a jurisprudence of transformational
constitutionalism in the findings of the Constitutional Court. The work
contributes to the rising interest in applying socio-legal analysis to
the statutory domain in postcolonial jurisdictions. It offers a
pioneering attempt to deconstruct the amorphous and ambivalent
assemblage of ideas and practices related to constitutionalism through
detailed ethnographic interrogation. It will appeal to scholars,
students and practitioners with an interest in theorizing challenges to
political liberalism in postcolonial contexts, as well as in rethinking
the methodological toolbox of socio-legal analysis.
