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Ivor Jennings's Constitutional Legacy beyond the Occidental‐Oriental Divide
Author(s) -
Malagodi Mara
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of law and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.263
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1467-6478
pISSN - 0263-323X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6478.2015.00700.x
Subject(s) - constitutionalism , democracy , constitutional law , law , work (physics) , sociology , constitutional theory , constitutional amendment , political science , history , politics , mechanical engineering , engineering
Sir W. Ivor Jennings (1903–1965) was one of Britain's most prominent constitutional law scholars of the twentieth century. He is mostly famed for his work in the 1930s on English Public Law. In 1941, Jennings, however, moved to Sri Lanka, progressively becoming involved in both an academic and professional capacity with constitutional processes across the decolonizing world in the early stages of the Cold War. This article provides an alternative account of Jennings's constitutional legacy to those of existing scholars by combining orthodox accounts of the ‘Occidental Jennings’ with an analysis of the neglected ‘Oriental’ experiences of this influential intellectual. It examines the ambiguous relationship between constitutionalism and democracy in Jennings's constitutional work overseas, and the impact of his postcolonial work on his views on constitutionalism.