Droit(s), Institutions et Interactions Culturelles (DIIC)

Dr Tadd Graham FERNEE Researcher & Lecturer (University of Tours) : "The Concretisation of Justice through Constitutional Practice: The case of the Indian Republic"

The seminar excavates the philosophical foundations of the Indian Constitution through contextualising the Indian Republic amidst the modern revolutions from which it drew inspiration, the American, French and Russian revolutions. The Indian Republic’s self-created identity centered the problematic of the state, reform and violence, thereby establishing a new 20th century paradigm in the “ethic of reconciliation” that reappeared from the United States Civil Rights movement to the South African revolution. However, the “ethic of reconciliation” also seeded the constitutional crisis that beset India in the 1970s with the Emergency. Ultimately, we examine how the Indian Republic created a new conception of justice through its experimental synthesis of socialism and democracy, whose strengths and weaknesses later found articulation in the path-breaking theories of Amartya Sen.

Organisation : Bruno Godefroy et Marc Goetzmann