Mohamed Ibrahim Hassan
In Eastern Europe and the Arab world, constitutionalism was the immediate way out of revolutionary chaos. In these two parts of the world, at two different times, revolutionary peoples chose to adopt constitutions in order to establish democratic political systems. While constitutionalism was the common denominator that the revolutionary peoples used to establish their new political regimes, the uniqueness of each region and country was evident in the transition and adoption of the new constitutions. Already, one only has to look at the situation in Poland, Romania, Egypt and Tunisia to see that the path taken to adopt a new political regime necessarily depends on the national context in which the transition is undertaken. Nevertheless, democracy cannot be decreed, as we have seen in Eastern Europe. Post-communist states, notably Poland and Romania, are still stalling on the path to democratisation. The Arab states will certainly find the same challenges on the road to democratisation.
