M. Christian Green

Religious and Legal Pluralism in Recent African Constitutional Reform

Something unexpected has been happening in Africa — and not just Northern Africa, which, along with the Middle East, has seen a winter and spring of revolution in 2011. Over the last several years, several sub-Saharan African nations have managed to conduct elections, produce new constitutions, and even partition themselves in relative peace, despite the often dire predictions of foreign governments, media, and election-monitoring organizations. In each of these cases, religion and religious freedom were high-profile concerns, but despite conventional assumptions about the propensity for religious contestation to lead to conflict, the constitutional procedures seem, at least in the near term, to have unfolded peacefully and productively. While the specter of rising Islamist movements in North Africa has led some to view the specifically religious dimensions of the revolutions with caution, religious actors are playing important and often positive roles in the referenda and new constitutions. Even so, as detailed in this paper issues of religious freedom, sharia courts, Muslim-Christian relations, and the relation of religion and state have been key concerns in the new constitutionalism. Countries in focus include Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia.