"Southern" constitutionalism: features of the transformation of public power in the countries of Latin America and Africa.

The article is dedicated to the public-legal analysis of the features of the transformation of public authority in the states of Latin America and Africa. The relevance of studying "southern" constitutionalism is due not only to its empirical diversity but also to the fact that it challenges the universalizing approach to constitutional design. The aim of the research is to analyze the features of the transformation of public authority in the states of Latin America and Africa through the lens of "southern" constitutionalism, not through direct comparison of the legal systems of these regions, but by extracting their main typological characteristics, identifying and formalizing institutional innovations and cultural-legal meanings that reflect the contours of the processes of formation and development of constitutionalism in these states. The tasks of the article include, first of all, identifying the common and distinctive features of public authority models on both continents, determining the relationship of southern constitutionalism with broader typologies (in particular, liberal, socialist, hybrid constitutionalism), and analyzing the transformational mechanisms used in the context of constitutional pluralism. Scientific methods employed include dialectical analysis; postcolonial analysis methodology; comparative legal analysis; historical-legal; and sociological analysis. Addressing the phenomenon of "southern" constitutionalism allows for an expansion of the horizons of comparative analysis, calling into question the universality of normative models dominant in Western scholarship. This necessitates a rethinking of the very language we use to talk about law, power, and statehood. Indeed, it is in southern contexts that the tension between the form and substance of public authority, between declared norms and actual practices, between legal universality and specific cultural situations, is fully manifested. Southern constitutionalism is not an alternative as a deviation but an alternative as a possible path, a reality in which public authority learns to be legitimate and justifiable in the eyes of the diverse communities that constitute its body. It is a process where instead of imposed models, forms rooted in the cultural, historical, and social context are born. It is a political-legal philosophy where the horizon of power relies not on a center but on a multiplicity of points of assembly. In this multiplicity, in this tension between stability and change, in this search for a balance between universalism and locality lies the main contribution of southern constitutionalism to the renewal of contemporary public law doctrine.

«southern» constitutionalism, features of transformation, public power, Latin America, Africa, postcolonial, «global South», states of the North, constitutional pluralism, constitution