Author: Faizan, Shuja Butt

Annotation: This article argues that law is the foundational pillar of nation-building - not one instrument among several, but the structural element upon which the other components of a nation rest. Where the study of nation-building has emphasised shared language, common memory, education and market integration, this article contends that these unify a population into a nation only when they are ordered, guaranteed and rendered durable by law. It develops the argument in six movements. It first distinguishes the state from the nation and locates law at the point where the two meet. It then sets out four functions through which law builds the nation: constituting the political community and its membership (citizenship); defining and limiting public power (constitutionalism and the rule of law); integrating a plural society into a single civic order (equality before the law); and generating the trust and predictability on which cooperation, welfare and a shared future depend. Drawing on the theory of nations and nationalism, institutional economics, and legal and constitutional theory, the article maintains that a nation without law is a population without a shared framework, and that the durability of any nation is finally a function of the quality, equality and legitimacy of its law. It closes with the risks of an over-legalised or instrumentalised understanding of law, and with principles for a law-centred conception of nation-building.

Keywords: nation-building; law; rule of law; constitutionalism; citizenship; legitimacy; institutions; social trust.

Pages in journal: 128 - 137