Page 67 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes “Sovereignty then begins to assume a new guise; it becomes instead a fixed legal idea, a pliant tool
for man’s welfare. And once this is felt of it, there is hardly any limit to the possibilities of
constitutional development, whether national or international.”
Then, we may take up the factor of internationalism. Modern constitutionalism is confronted with
the issue of how to reconcile the framework and operation of a constitutional state with the
requirements of a new international order. The constitution of a state should be such that recognises
the ideals of international law and justice, renunciation of the policies and programmes of war or
irrational protectionism, observance of the decisions of the international organisation and the like.
As already pointed out, the constitution of Japan has done a great thing by incorporating a specific
clause (Art. 9) speaking of the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. The Indian
constitution goes a step ahead by incorporating a directive principle in its Part IV (Art. 51) that
says that the state shall strive to promote international peace and security, foster respect for
international law and treaty obligations and encourage settlement of international disputes by
peaceful means.
No right-thinking person can deny that some kind of world authority is the only alternative to
international anarchy that has produced two devastating wars and must, if not checked, end in
such, rather a far bigger, holocaust entailing total destruction of the human race. It requires that
the constitution of a state should be so devised that it does not act as an impediment to the growth
of a better international order. A constitution desiring ‘export of revolution’ or propagation of an
ideology of totalitarianism, or subscribing to the eulogy of wars and the like should be deemed as
the very enemy of the idea of constitutionalism. We may once again invoke the device of federalism
that can . serve our purpose in this regard very well. A constitutional state must subscribe to this
idea that the ultimate objective is the ‘establishment not of an international but of a supra-national
authority to which the nations would sacrifice their external authority.”
In addition, three more features may be enumerated which have come into limelight in the age of
globalisation and liberalisation. These are related to the protection of human rights, prevention of
environmental pollution, and observance of the principles of international law and morality. It is
for this reason that the new constitutions of some countries like China, Russian Federation and
South Africa have some provisions in this regard. Though a communist country, the Chinese
constitution of 1982 has a set of general principles one of which says that the state ‘shall give
permission to foreign enterprises, whether individual or collective, to invest their money in this
country and to enter into economic cooperation with Chinese entrepreneurs’. The constitution of
the Russian Federation of 1993 has provisions for the protection of a healthy environment. It
recognises the norms of sustainable development. The constitution of South Africa of 1996 honours
the principles of international law. Hence, the state is enjoined to observe its international treaties
and commitments.
Two important points arise to engage our attention at the end of this study from what we have
discussed so far. First, an analysis of constitutionalism would be incomplete if it does not attempt
to assess efforts made to combat the forces of totalitarianism that is its biggest enemy. Any movement
in the direction of weakening the civil rights of the people in the name of the’reason of the state’is
a challenge to the concept of constitutionalism that should be faced to revise the meaning of
constitutionalism in the light of new and still newer conditions. We should look at the forces that
have an essentially totalitarian character and yet they have a potential attraction for the people.
Conditions should be generated in which the models of social arjd economic democracy are
strengthened. Such a model of democracy “is not a miracle which comes to life at a particular
moment and then continues to function automatically, but it is rather a political task upon which
it is necessary to work continually.”
Second, change is the law of nature that should be welcomed as it is inevitable. It calls for the
revision of the old values and systems in the light of new hopes and aspirations of the people. We
have seen that it is on account of this change that the content of constitutionalism took a turn from
an aristocratic to a democratic side after the events of the middle phase of the last century and that
socialism came to be added as one more attribute to it after those of nationalism and democracy.
In other words, it signifies that the meaning of constitutionalism should not be given a rigid or

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