Economic Constitutionalism in Africa: Plural Economic Ordering and Development Governance

Abstract This paper, through examining the framework for understanding economic constitutionalism in Africa, challenges the dominant assumption that constitutions provide a coherent, state-centred system of economic ordering. It argues that economic governance in African states is best understood as operating through plural economic ordering, defined as the interaction of multiple normative and institutional systems, including formal constitutional law, customary regimes, informal economic practices and transnational regulatory frameworks. The paper proceeds in four stages. First, it reconceptualises economic constitutionalism by situating it within broader debates on legal pluralism and political economy. Second, it demonstrates that African constitutions articulate a hybrid formal economic order that combines market recognition, redistributive commitments and strong forms of state intervention. Third, it shows that the practical meaning of these constitutional provisions is co-produced by material conditions such as resource dependence, limited industrialisation, informality, fiscal fragility and external economic constraints. Fourth, it analyses how plural economic ordering operates in practice across key domains, including land governance, natural resource regulation and urban informality, highlighting the modalities of overlap, translation and contestation. Building on this analysis, the article advances a theory of plural economic constitutionalism, arguing that the constitution does not monopolise economic governance but instead structures, coordinates and legitimates interactions between multiple systems of authority. This reconceptualisation has important implications for constitutional theory and development governance. It shifts the focus from institutional design to coordination, from hierarchical authority to relational governance and from formal compliance to legitimacy within a fragmented institutional landscape. The paper concludes that African economic constitutionalism anticipates a broader transformation in global constitutional thought, in which constitutional systems must increasingly operate under conditions of complexity, plurality and dispersed authority.