In an October 2020 referendum, nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted to start a process to write a new constitution. A special assembly with equal representation of men and women will now attempt to replace the 1980 dictatorship-era constitution. Getting to this point was a major win for workers, students, leftists, feminists, Indigenous peoples, and the poor, all of whom were involved in leading 2019’s widespread protests over social and economic inequality. The demonstrations forced the conservative government to make the concession of holding the referendum. Chile now embarks on the fraught process of writing a new constitution that must satisfy diverse stakeholders while reforming political and economic systems that have preserved the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship.

Sri Lanka's ethnoreligious divisions are bound to continue as long as the likes of Rajapaksa dominate the island's political scene.

Nepal's new constitution was supposed to cap a momentous decade that saw the end of the monarchy and civil war. But identity politics and economic discontent have called national unity into question.

[A]n overwhelming majority of Japanese wants to ‘protect' the constitution—using the same word, mamore , that Abe and his supporters use to justify their desire for Japanese troops to fight.

[T]he struggle for power between the Maoists and the traditional political parties has dominated much of Nepal's politics for the past seven years.

[T]he country has bought a short amount of time in which to entrench the new constitution, wield it for reform, and battle ghosts of the past.

President Ratsiraka is trying to reverse the gains that have been made during Madagascar's democratization process. Campaigning on the slogan of freedom with development, he has successfully moved the country back toward the autocracy of the Second Republic. If the highest leadership is not seeking democracy, then who is?