Chairs
• Markus Böckenförde bockenfordem@ceu.edu
• Christina Murray christina.murray@uct.ac.za
• Berihun Gebeye b.gebeye@ucl.ac.uk

Constitutional change is especially frequent in Africa, with constitutions being replaced or substantially amended more often than in other regions. Indeed, in the general introduction to Constitutional Change and Constitutionalism in Africa (2025), Fombad and Steytler suggest that rather than leading to more stable democratic orders and sustainable constitutionalism, ‘the post-1990 wave of constitutional reforms appears to have provoked a contagious fever of making, unmaking, and remaking constitutions’—rather than showing resilience, post-Cold War constitutions in Africa appear to be particularly vulnerable. Most recently, a rash of coups in Francophone Africa has seen constitutions replaced by transitional charters allowing for military government and, subsequently, sometimes replaced by constitutions designed by the military. At the same time, attempts at constitutional change to deepen democracy by, for instance, reducing executive powers, increasing accountability mechanisms, strengthening the independence of the judicial system, and enhancing rights protection are now seldom successful.

This workshop will discuss these matters, considering, inter alia: incentives for changing constitutions and the contexts in which change is most likely to succeed; potent barriers to constitutional change; effective amendment rules; the role of public participation in constitutional change and its impact on the likelihood of success in attempts to change a constitution; and the vice and virtue of supranational constitutionalism for viable national constitutions.

Papers may either reflect on the situation in a specific country/regional organisation or adopt a comparative law perspective, contrasting the situations and solutions in different countries/regional organisations or emphasising the influence of different national trajectories or cultures. Conceptual and theoretical approaches are equally welcome.