The guardian of the regime: the Turkish Constitutional Court in comparative perspective

Abstract

Many modern constitutions, including those included in this volume, reflect ambitious programmes for transforming existing social, economic and political interests through political engineering. In countries like Iran and Turkey the underlying ideal of the constitution is not the protection of the existing nation but nothing less than the creation of a new nation. As Arjomand has noted, this desire for social engineering through constitutionalism is a characteristic of ideological constitutions found in many developing countries.