Transitional contexts are often a messy affair and a sensitive period of great uncertainty. Much is at stake during transitions—politically, socially, economically, and militarily. It is no wonder that transitions often draw deep interest from regional and international actors, as they do for domestic parties. The edited volume by Emmanuel De Groof, diplomat for the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Micha Wiebusch, senior legal officer at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, International Law and Transitional Governance, offers wide-ranging and critical perspectives on the role of such actors during, as well as the complexities of managing, these periods of flux. Eleven contributing authors—academics and practitioners—probe five overarching themes related to transitional governance: (1) its temporariness; (2) its internationalization; (3) its legality and legitimacy; (4) its constitutional and supra-constitutional dilemmas; and (5) the parameters of its framework and objectives. Rather than present a series of case studies, each chapter in this compendium helpfully delves into one or more such challenges of transitional governance.

The authors make lucid suggestions, some much more challenging to implement than others. De Groof and Wiebusch make an appeal to international lawyers to “remain alert to a practice which is likely to remain a tool of choice to transform conflict,” especially given the growing number of what they describe as supra-constitutionally regulated transitions (at least thirty since the Cold War) (p.16). What, however, is transitional governance? No two transitions are the same, and the processes that unfold following a rupture or other type of transition can vary significantly. It is unsurprising, then, that transitional governance is a phenomenon whose meaning cannot be neatly summed up in one concise definition.

Nevertheless, in this volume, De Groof and Wiebusch present a definition where transitional governance is “understood . . . as public power exercised by interim governments or other forms of transitional authority governed by transitional legal regulations . . . in the context of conflict or large-scale political unrest” (p. 1). They point to the objective of transitional governance as being the overhaul of institutions and constitutions within states, without affecting their territorial integrity (id.). It is unclear, however, whether transitional governance is understood to play a role in peacebuilding or if it has the humbler, although also challenging, task of conflict management. The various takes in this volume tend to oscillate between both goals.

Still, one common understanding among transitional governance practitioners and observers is that it constitutes temporariness, especially given the supra-constitutional nature of transitions and the goal of returning to a constitutional order. The exercise of public powers by interim authorities is meant to be temporary. But how temporary is temporary? What if temporary becomes long-term? Christine Bell, of the University of Edinburgh, and Robert A. Forster, PhD candidate at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, underscore that the nature and length of a transition is one critical factor that shapes the legal form of the transition itself; revolutionary change after violent conflict, for instance, often entails longer time frames of temporary governance (p. 47). Zinaida Miller, of Seton Hall University, raises a cautionary tale regarding false temporariness, or the instrumentalization of claims to temporariness. She discusses the entrenchment of emergency laws to justify violent and discriminatory practices as interim, yet they become part of the established legal order in a transitional context and beyond (p. 123). Governments’ abuse of the optics of temporariness that transitional governance processes typically constitute means that the concurrent abuse of “emergency” laws aim to draw attention “to an immediate, proximate, urgent event rather than histories, contexts, and causes” (p. 126). This is why, Miller concludes, identifying the objectives—or the ends—of transitions would clarify when a transition actually ends.

Of course, different actors have different objectives, raising further questions regarding when and how transitions begin and end, as well as related questions concerning perceptions of legitimacy. Bell and Forster observe that “transitions within transitions” are a natural course of events that require transitional governance to pursue “adaptive transition management” (p. 49). Flexibility, they argue, must be built into transitional governance processes to allow for such adaptive management. Transitions need to be “constituted, de-constituted and re-constituted over time in ways that their initial design should ideally leave open” (p. 34). In this way, transitional governance measures can better address what Bell and Forster term the “predictive unpredictability” of transitions.Footnote ¹

The chaotic and often tumultuous course of transitions is part of what makes it difficult to design processes whose efficacy can withstand episodes of renewed violence and political tensions. Add to that the role of international actors in transitional governance, to which the authors of this volume draw significant attention, and an already fraught process becomes more complex. In their respective chapters, Noam Wiener, legal officer at the UN Office for Legal Affairs, and Matthew Saul, of the Inland University of Applied Sciences, discuss questions relating to the legality and international legitimacy of transitional regimes. Wiener asserts that a norm requiring democratic legitimacy in order to recognize new governments does not exist in international law (p. 83). A classic example of this is the swift recognition by many in the international community, including the United States, United Kingdom, and France, of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) in 2011. But was this recognition to legitimate the NTC, or was it more to delegitimate the previous Gaddafi regime? Ayça Çubukçu's analysis of the motivations behind the implementation of the responsibility to protect principle in Libya is useful here. In particular, the transitional governance processes that unfolded in Libya at the time were not without significant international intervention, most notably through NATO's military intervention, but also through diplomatic, political, and other military means that continue to involve geopolitical powers in the Middle East and Europe.

Left out of this discussion concerning legality and legitimacy are the Libyans themselves. Saul notes the disconnect between population and government, especially when international involvement plays a role in a transitional context. Put simply, “[t]ransitional governance that is dependent on international actors raises legitimacy questions, especially from the perspective of self-determination” (p. 97). In the context of Libya, Çubukçu notes the gap between “self-determining” nationals and “solidarity-performing” foreigners. She asks how we can distinguish between acts of “solidarity” and acts of “intervention.”Footnote ² This question must also be asked of the growing role of international actors in domestic transitional governance contexts. Wiener raises an important point, however: transitional authorities are often selected rather than elected, thanks to the prioritization of what he terms the “practicalities of governance and the time and conditions needed for elections” (p. 104). As such, Saul observes, “it is possible for legality to be conferred on governance practices even when they are contrary to, rather than advancing, popular governance” (p. 108).

Take the case of Egypt, which presents similar questions concerning the distinction between the international “legality” and “legitimacy” surrounding recognition of governments (liberal democracies or not). In Egypt, the government of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled from 1981–2011, was at its weakest point during the 2011 popular anti-government uprising there. On the first day of the mass protests, January 25, 2011, then U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton stated: “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”Footnote ³ Aside from the ire this statement drew among Egyptians who sacrificed their lives to protest decades of “stable” authoritarian rule financed and politically supported by the United States, it was clear that democracy is not and never was the priority for such a strategic ally in the Middle East. Wiener cautions that expecting all domestic transitional governments to be liberal democracies is utopian, and that “[w]hile we can't always get what we want, stable independent transitional governments is probably what we need” (p. 86). But who is “we”? And what is considered “stable”? Authoritarian governments provide so-called stability through long-term repression, leading to revolutions such as those that unfolded throughout the Arab uprising period and have since been fraught with every transitional governance nightmare in the book. There is no question that the varied experiences concerning international law and transitional governance in the Arab region require greater academic and policy scrutiny.

Another way to examine the promises and pitfalls of transitional governance is to question the objectives of transitions themselves, as well as of their governance. Miller argues that the success of any transition cannot be separated from its objectives: “The act of declaring a transition is less an empirical decision than a discursive act. Searching for its end requires finding its ends” (p. 128). Indeed, once the ends of domestic interim authorities match those of their powerful international allies, one can possibly state that the transitional period is concluding and giving way to a longer-term, new normal of governance. But this would hold true for the governing elites’ version of a transition, not necessarily the popular one. This volume contains a wealth of perspectives regarding the objectives of transitional governance and strategies to manage its complexities. Nevertheless, the essays leave open the question of where do the people—and not just the institutions—fit into the puzzle of transitional governance?

Relatedly, both Miller and Vasuki Nesiah, of New York University, raise the problem with the “progress” narrative, wherein the legal management of a transition is assumed to propel its course towards a linear path of “progress.” Nesiah, however, cautions against the tendency to—consciously or subconsciously—foreground “historicist notions of transition” whose benchmarks are guided by “European stories of historical progress” (toward “democracy”) (p. 147). This is particularly important because, as the volume demonstrates, transitional governance has increasingly become an internationalized enterprise, one plagued with “enduring continuities that render colonial pasts an ever-present co-traveller of postcolonial futures” (p. 145). Çubukçu makes a similar assessment of the use of the responsibility to protect as a legal framework that replicates the “protectorate” model of the nineteenth century: expand the interventionist powers of external actors within a given domestic context without “officially assuming sovereignty over those states.”Footnote ⁴

Constitutional rupture in transitional contexts might not happen only once. Repeated re-constitutionalization in transitions means that varying degrees of rupture will necessitate processes that can adequately—and promptly—transform to respond to these unexpected changes. These changes unfold both domestically and among the international actors that are heavily involved in the shaping of domestic transitional governance. However, it is increasingly difficult to speak of “domestically driven” transitional governance processes, especially in strategic hotspots such as Yemen, Libya, and Syria, where, for instance, both Gulf state actors and their Western allies play an influential role in the very politically charged developments of these transitions. The “predictive unpredictability” that Bell and Forster describe, then, is one that pertains to both domestic and international actors as the rapid shifts in the geopolitical balance of power will continue to impact the course of transitions, and hence of transitional governance. De Groof and Wiebusch also highlight how transitional governance can often itself be “a terrain of international political struggle” (p. 15).

This volume essentially proposes a method to the madness that is transitional governance. How can transitional states better manage constitution-making, institutional reform, the role of international law, power struggles, transitional justice considerations, legality, legitimacy, political and legal ruptures, the lack of sufficient expertise, and the role of international actors? The dynamic processes and wide-ranging factors that shape, propel, and challenge transitions all demonstrate the importance of interdisciplinary work in transitional governance practice and scholarship. As such, this impressive volume is valuable for diplomats, scholars, mediators, and policy practitioners in the fields of political science, law, sociology, history, and international relations. It also provides critical material that will serve as an informative point of reference for further transitional governance studies, especially ones that apply and assess the proposed strategies within specific case studies.