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Introduction
The role of a constitution and a constitutional order in political development is generally not discussed in recent literature on the comparative politics of developing societies. It is more or less taken for granted that, in the division between developed and developing societies, the former are identified with mature institutions of legitimate order that provide political stability, continuity of political authority, and established rules for conflict settlement; the latter are characterized by the weakness or absence of such institutions. This is the analytical scheme in Huntington's now classic study, Political Order in Changing Societies.1 In this work, there is no index entry for "constitution," "constitutionalism," or "constitutional order." The ab-sence of such references was not considered anomalous, for it was assumed that constitutional practice and norms, designs and processes, were the defining characteristics of mature developed societies. Instead of examining the role of constitutions in the evolution of developing societies, comparative political studies like Huntington's focused on the polity's structural foundations and the functional nature of political organizations. Huntington claimed that the difference between developed and developing societies was not in the form, but rather in the degree, of government. Constitutionalism, the study of constitutions in the workings of a mature political system, in this view, rightly belongs to examining the various forms of political systems available in the modern world. Conversely, his study implied, efficacy or degree of government did not follow from the adoption of a constitution in the making of political order in a developing society. Recent events in Europe, beginning with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, raise once again questions of ethnicity, nationalism, and political development. For much of the second half of the twentieth century, these were seen as problems pertinent to the developing societies of Africa, Asia, and South America and only of comparative historical interest to mature societies. The resurfacing of "national" problems within Europe and Canada suggests that constitutional order cannot be taken for granted as a measure of mature societies, nor can issues of constitutional norms, designs, and processes be separated from issues of institution building as the priority of developing societies. More study is required of the place of constitutional practice in a polity's evolution, of the contribution of constitutional norms to strengthening the political structures of developing societies, and of constitutional arrangements for democratic development in ethnically plural societies. The purpose of this paper is to examine through a case study what relationship, if any, may exist between constitutionalism, i.e., the idea of constitution in the making of a democratic society, and ethnic conflict in a biethnic or multiethnic society. Constitutionalism as a mechanism of ethnic conflict settlement is distinct from the method of integrating or assimilating ethnic groups into a higher order of political identity. Integration implies a movement of ethnic group(s) from "outside" or the "periphery" of a political community to "inside," where the "inside" represents the established political order. It suggests that institutions, reflecting the values, preferences, and norms of a dominant ethnic group, class, or citizenry, already exist to enable the process by which those "outside" the political community are brought "inside." Typical of the nature of integration-assimilation is the process by which immigrants of different ethnic backgrounds are "schooled" into the American "melting pot," given French citizenship with due encouragement to adopt French culture, given Hebrew lessons in Israel, or invited to contribute to the "multicultural" mix of Canada. This method appears to have worked successfully in states with mature political orders (the United States), where the cultural identity of a state is firmly rooted in history (France), or where the state is a product of immigrants settling a territory (Israel). But in states that are multiethnic in their initial construction, as most postcolonial states are with their territories having been demarcated by colonial powers, such integration would scarcely be distinguishable from a policy of control by a dominant ethnic group, for example the Kikuyu in Kenya, Sunni Muslims in Iraq, or Malay bumi-putra (sons of the soil) in Malaysia. In contrast, constitutionalism in a multiethnic state represents an effort to design a political order in which each constituent ethnic group is viewed as an integral part of that society, where no one ethnic group takes precedence over other(s), and where the social contract binding the different groups together is legitimized by a common set of values either historically found, as within Arab-Islamic societies, or deliberately constructed, as in modern India. The experience of Pakistan provides a good case study for examining the linkage between constitutionalism and ethnic conflict. The fundamental question that confronted politicians engaged in constitution making in Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim society where the ethnic identities of the linguistically diverse population were subordinated to the common attachment to Islam, was whether Pakistan would be a "Muslim majority" secularly oriented state or an "Islamic state." This question is as germane today for the Muslim world (which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia, from the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union to sub-Saharan Africa) as it was in the 1950s when the question first surfaced in Pakistan. The failure to answer this question successfully eventually contributed to the tearing apart of the country in 1971 along ethnic lines. One of the main lessons of Pakistan's experience is that a political community (state) must reflect in its constitutional arrangement the core value(s)-in this case Islam-of its majority population. The debate in Pakistan on the nature of the Islamic state in modern times anticipated the contemporary struggle, since Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979, between modernists and traditionalists within the Muslim world.2 Events in Algeria, with the repression of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) after its electoral success in the opening round of the December 1991 elections, illustrate the extent to which such debate may become bloody. A political order that is not built on the shared values of the population lacks legitimacy, is insecure and, therefore, ultimately held together only by force. Under such circumstances, a biethnic or multiethnic state, such as Pakistan, will tend to fragment along ethnic lines as ethnic loyalty assumes a greater importance than loyalty to a larger political community. A successful constitutional order is a preemption of ethnic conflict, which can cause the disintegration of a political community. Accommodation of ethnicity within the larger framework of an ethnically pluralist state presupposes a social contract in the absence of which, as the case of Pakistan illustrates, force may be used for an indefinite period to keep the political community together. But, the eventual dissolution of that community may not be averted. The constitutional history of Pakistan has been turbulent.3 Three attempts at constitution making and rule by constitutionally mandated governments have been punctuated by military coups and martial law regimes. The constitutions of 1956 and 1962 were abrogated by the military coups of 1958 and 1969. The constitution of 1973 was amended by the military regime that ousted Prime Minister Bhutto in 1977. It remains in effect as a transition to civilian government was completed after the death of the military strongman General Zia ul-Haq in August 1988. Ever since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, the country has been pulled in different directions by regional forces. Questions regarding its viability have accompanied every analysis of its political future.4 The unsettled nature of its politics is exemplified by its unenviable history of civil war and dismemberment in 1971, when East Pakistan broke away to acquire separate statehood as Bangladesh, and the hanging of an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, by the military in 1979. These two events indicate the intensity of ethnic conflict that has undermined political order within Pakistan and the perils that accompany the struggle for democracy in developing societies. Hence, Pakistan's experience of struggling with problems of ethnicity and the challenge of establishing a constitutional order provide an interesting case study. It is appropriate here to define ethnic conflict and ethnicity. Ethnic conflict occurs within the territorial boundaries of a state. Such conflict may spill across national boundaries, as the ethnic conflict in Pakistan did before the establishment of Bangladesh and as occurred in a number of countries in Africa. Ethnic conflict may also potentially be irredentist, as with the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran threatening to dismember more than one state in a region. Ethnicity is collective identity within which individuals situate themselves to strengthen their sense of belonging and self-esteem.5 It connotes a community in the sense that Smith defines ethnie or ethnic community as "a social group whose members share a sense of common origins, claim a common and distinctive history and destiny, possess one or more distinctive characteristics, and feel a sense of collective uniqueness and solidarity.6 The problem with Smith's definition of ethnic community is that it also defines nation. Here Worsley's observation in distinguishing between ethnie and nation is useful. According to Worsley, nationalism is another form of ethnicity, but special in the sense that it is "the institutionalization of one particular ethnic identity by attaching it to the State.7 Discussion of nation and nationalism is inseparable from politics and, hence, the subject of power. It is the drive for power through the establishment of a state that transforms ethnicity into nationalism. It is necessary to keep this small but important distinction in perspective, since the problem of ethnicity is mostly a problem in a multiethnic political order that, if not constitutionally resolved, may threaten the viability of that order, as the case of Pakistan illustrates. 
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