Constitution Drafting After the Arab Spring. A Comparative Overview

Scholars have written extensively on the content of post-Arab Spring constitutions, highlighting these constitutions’ strengths and weaknesses. Less attention has been devoted to the processes that led to the adoption of these new documents. By providing a comprehensive comparative analysis of these constitution-drafting processes, this Article aims at contributing to filling this gap in the literature. Special focus is placed on the constitution-making processes followed in Morocco (constitution of 2011), Syria (constitution of 2012), Tunisia (constitution of 2014), and Egypt (constitutions of 2012 and 2014—the latter being amended in 2019), as well as on the constitutional reform processes that took place in Jordan (2011, followed by the constitutional amendments adopted in 2014 and 2016) and Algeria (2016 and 2020). Reference is also made to the ongoing constituent process in Libya and to the UN-facilitated process aimed at adopting a new constitution for Syria. The Article shows that the vast majority of these processes were characterized by major shortcomings, a fact that had a negative impact on the legitimacy and sense of ownership of the new constitutions and, ultimately, on the transition processes as a whole. The only positive exception appears to be Tunisia.