The Constitutional Movement and the Baha'is of Iran: The Creation of an ‘Enemy Within’

This article looks at the role of the Baha'is in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, 1906–1911. It propounds three major theses. First, that when the royalists and anti-constitutionalist clerics accused the Constitutionalists of being “Babis”, it was the Baha'i community that they were referring to rather than the Azali Babis. Second, that the Baha'is had a complex relationship with the Constitutionalist Movement, sometimes supporting it and sometimes abstaining from involvement in politics, but that in any case, the impact of the Baha'is on the reformers and on the Revolution has been underestimated by most writers. Third, that, despite their closeness in terms of ideas about social reform, the enmity of the Azalis and clerics caused the Baha'is to be excluded from the reform legislation resulting from the Constitutional Revolution and effectively to be excluded from Iranian society. It resulted in the creation of an “enemy within”. Some of the consequences of this both for the Baha'is and for Iran are discussed.     

Russian Constitutional Crisis: Law and Politics Under Yel'tsin

This article is a foray into the understudied issue of environmental protest politics in Central Asia. Specifically, it uses Kyrgyzstan as a case study to test the argument that environmental concerns mobilized people to engage in protest and in ways different from other kinds of protest. This essay presents the first systematic study of public opinion about the environment in Kyrgyzstan. It includes results from a 2009 nationwide survey, over 100 expert and elite interviews, and newspaper content analysis. Furthermore, it spatially analyzes these results to identify geographical variation in public perception and political event occurrence patterns. Protest engagement is a complex process determined by the interaction of several factors, and is not explained solely by affluence, rationality, or grievances. Eco-mobilization – collective political action about the environment – represents a class of protest events that offers a different view into mass discontent in the former Soviet Union and neo-patrimonial societies. The study finds that these political actions about the environment are not necessarily elite driven; there is a basic foundation of national concern and salience of these issues, and demonstrated environmental beliefs do help to explain protest behavior.     

Constitutionalism as a solution to despotism and imperialism: the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the Ottoman-Turkish press

This article contributes to the growing scholarship on the connections between the Ottoman and Iranian revolutions by exploring Ottomans’ reactions to and portrayal of the constitutional struggle in Iran. Based on an examination of primary sources that have not been utilized before, it reveals how an ideologically diverse group of intellectuals tried to link the two revolutions together in the Ottoman-Turkish press, focusing on shared problems and ideals. It demonstrates that undergoing a revolutionary process themselves, these intellectuals interpreted the events in Iran through the prism of their own experiences and used them to garner support for the constitutional regime at home. Through their depictions of the Iranian revolution, they not only portrayed the 1908 Revolution as part of a broader struggle against despotism and imperialism with significant implications for the Islamic world, but also conveyed the message that the Ottoman constitution needed to be supported and protected so that it did not fail like the one in Iran.     

A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017

Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by the main political actors in the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps and the resource advantages enjoyed by the ruling party, assesses the electoral performance of both sides through a summary of results from provincial areas and geographical regions, and considers how Turkish politics are likely to take shape under the new system.     

The Right to Gender Recognition before the Colombian Constitutional Court: A Queer and Travesti Theory Analysis

This article discusses the case-law on gender recognition of the Colombian Constitutional Court. It argues that the Court, paying attention to queer and trans theory and to the demands of trans activists, has interpreted mainstream constitutional rights in such a way that trans people can have their self-defined identities recognised. The article criticises the limitations of this case-law, which still does not explicitly include non-binary and gender fluid people. On the other hand, it highlights that the Court's doctrine has the potential to challenge both the gender binary and the very category of ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ in the law.     

Driving Dangerously: Law,Culture and Driving Habits in Iran

Iran has the highest rate of road traffic accidents (RTAs) worldwide. Iranian studies of the growing levels of RTAs are often conducted by medical doctors, who view them in light of the increase in the production and ownership of cars and the changed lifestyle of many Iranians, and discuss them in terms of pathology, morbidity and epidemiology. This article argues that although the high levels of RTAs in Iran are new and reflective of the changing character of Iranian society, the habit of reckless driving is not. Using open and semi-structured interviews, it explores how Iranians describe their driving habits and experience RTAs. Placing the results of the interviews in the historical context of Iranian society, the article goes on to examine driving as a form of behaviour with legal and cultural dimensions indicative of how Iranians interact with each other and with the normative structures of the legal system, the state and society to create a form of social order. Being mediated through the use of automobiles, driving habits also throw light on how Iranians relate themselves to an aspect of modern technology. Thus, this study will treat Iranians' driving habits as an empirical manifestation of one aspect of their legal culture, which is mediated through the technology of the automobile.     

Pathways to Karlsruhe: A Sequence Analysis of the Careers of German Federal Constitutional Court Judges

Judges of the German Federal Constitutional Court can be seen as both judicial and political elites. Yet up to now there is no systematic work on the Court's' judges and especially their careers prior to their appointments. Using sequence analysis, this article identifies four relatively distinct clusters of career characteristics: academia, administration (and administrative courts), ordinary jurisdiction and politics. Judges whose career background is limited to the judicial sphere mostly advance from a level below the Länder to the Länder and then on to the federal level, while those with a background in politics or administration switch less often among them. Furthermore, little evidence was found to suggest that differences in the judges' career paths can be explained by reference to the body that elected them (Bundestag or Bundesrat) or the party that nominated them (CDU/CSU or SPD). The article also illustrates the possibilities of sequence analysis for elite studies.     

The Russian Constitutional Court: The First Term

An American political scientist and constitutional scholar recounts the development, and analyzes the procedures and backstage activities, of Russia's highest judicial body. The study, based in part on personal interviews, traces the constitutional court's political influence up through the pivotal conflict between the Parliament's Speaker Khasbulatov and President Yel'tsin during the last week of March 1993. In addition to major decisions, notably that which followed 52 sessions from May 26 to December 16, 1992 devoted to the trial of the CPSU, the narrative focuses on the role of Chief Justice Zor'kin. Also discussed are the court's legislative mandate, its expanding caseload and legal shortcomings. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H11, K10, K41, P20.