Constitutional Matters: Women, State, Law, and Constitutions in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings

Following the Arab Spring in 2011, constitutions and constitutional reforms were everywhere in the air in the Arab world. Constitutional matters were a must in critical conversations on women and gender rights in the Arab world at that historic moment. Egypt has reworked its constitution more than once since 2011. Constitutional debates mixed with debates about law and family codes were engaging diverse publics in Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia — and always in Lebanon — as well as many other Arab countries. Regardless of whether in a particular Arab country constitutions arechanging or even the possibility of constitutional change is being discussed, it remains the case that constitutions are useful projects to think with and to think through for understanding gender, rights, and other key social issues. Here I raise some of the questions and issues that can be productively engaged with through the lens of constitutions. I focus on some of the framing questions that might productively be considered in conjunction with, or perhaps juxtaposed with, the idea of constitutions.