Constitucionalismo y participación política en los Estados del norte de áfrica: una visión histórica

The constitutional history of North African countries can be dividedchronologically into two great historical moments and geographically into two clearly differentiated spaces from a geopolitical point of view. The historical moments correspond, first, to what could be considered as constitutional prehistory, formed by the attempts at constitutionalism that took place during the 19th century in Tunisia and Egypt parallel to the Ottoman Tanzimat – of which they were largely a consequence – and secondly, to the constitutions in the independent states, that began with the Egyptian Constitution in 1923 but would take more than a quarter century to become established in the countries of the Maghreb. The geographical spaces are, on the one hand, Egypt, with an independent life well in advance of the rest of the Arab world, and on the other, the countries of the Maghreb, controlled to a large extent by the same colonial power, France, whichwould leave its imprint on political life in the region.