Brief considerations on the figures of constitutional order in Africa

As a category of analysis of African political regimes, the constitutional order allows us to conceptualize the latter as both an organization and a form of command, as an arrangement of roles, a set of behavioral prescriptions, and a hierarchization of society in a dynamic framework. This framework highlights a diversity of figures, sometimes distinct, sometimes complementary. The constitutional order in question is linked to history and culture, to importation and “vernacularization,” to the written norm and the unwritten norm; it varies depending on the circumstances of time, place, and action. It is shaped by dynamics of both stability and change.