Women as constitution-makers : case studies from the new democratic era

Ruth Rubio-Marín and Helen Irving, eds. Women as Constitution-Makers: Case Studies from the New Democratic Era. Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. 394. £25.99. ISBN: 9781108734530. Ruth Rubio-Marín and Helen Irving’s edited collection Women as Constitution-Makers: Case Studies from the New Democratic Era, examining the role women have played in recent major (or attempted major) constitutional change processes, is a timely and important addition to the literature in a nascent but growing field focusing on the relationship between women and constitution-making.1 The topic sits at the intersection of three trends in democratic constitution-making. The first is the “participatory turn” in constitution-making (at 2), whereby popular participation in constitution-making has increasingly come to be seen both as the fulfilment of an emerging right to political participation in the constitution-making context, and as a precondition to the legitimacy of constitutions.