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Preface - H. Kumarasingham -- Chapter 1: Viceregalism - H. Kumarasingham -- Chapter 2: The Crown and Conservative Party Leadership: The Political Crisis of 1963 in Britain -Pippa Catterall -- Chapter 3: Sovereigns, Sovereignties and the Scottish Question: Identities and Constitutional Change - James Mitchell -- Chapter 4: 'A Supreme and Permanent Symbol of Executive Authority': The Crown and Governorship in Northern Ireland in an Age of 'Troubles' - Donal Lowry -- Chapter 5: Viceregal Crises in Nkrumah's Ghana - A. J. Stockwell -- Chapter 6: 'A Quaint and Unimportant Anachronism?' The Office of Governor General and Constitutional Controversies in the Commonwealth Caribbean - Kate Quinn -- Chapter 7: The Radical Nationalist as National Figurehead: Nnamdi Azikiwe and the end of Nigeria's Westminster Constitution, 1960-66 - Barnaby Crowcroft -- Chapter 8: The Queen of Rhodesia versus the Queen of the United Kingdom: Conflicts of Allegiance in Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence - Donal Lowry -- Chapter 9: The Eastminster Viceroy and the Republican Monarch: The Sri Lankan Head of State and the 2018 Constitutional Crisis in Historical Context - Asanga Welikala -- Chapter 10: The Rulers and the Centrality of Conventions in Malaysia's 'Eastminster' Constitution - Andrew Harding -- Chapter 11: Kerr's Ghost: The Office of Governor-General in Australia after 1975 - Mark McKenna -- Chapter 12: The Struggle to Reform Brunei's Monarchy: The Sultan and the British - Kevin YL Tan -- Chapter 13: The Race to the Palace from Tuvalu: What Happens when a Prime Minister and a Governor-General Try to Dismiss Each Other? - Anne Twomey -- Chapter 14: Viceregalism at Westminster: The Role and Powers of the Queen in the 2019 Brexit Constitutional Crises - H. Kumarasingham.

Across first Asia and then Africa new states rose from colonial rule in the post-war era that sought to build New Westminster constitutions. The Westminster model was the transnational trend after 1945 in constitution-making for much of the world emerging from colonial rule and was promoted by the Colonial Office, Indigenous leaders and constitutional advisers such as the ubiquitous Sir Ivor Jennings. However, this flexible and ambiguous regime type caused many political and constitutional crises that questioned the wisdom of applying Westminster to these states. Jennings worked across Africa and Asia including in Ceylon, Nepal, Malaya, Singapore, the Maldives, Sudan, Ethiopia, South Africa, and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It is Pakistan, however, that sticks out as Jennings's most controversial role where he effectively, legally and politically, contentiously defended a "constitutional coup" by the Governor- General against the Constituent Assembly in 1954. The case also serves to demonstrate how the manipulation and divisive interpretations of Westminster conventions and institutions in the first decade of Pakistan led to the breakdown of democracy and laid conspicuous precedents for dictatorship and military rule, which have explanatory value in understanding the country's prevalent fragility in embedding accountability and democracy.

AbstractWhen India gained independence in August 1947 the world watched with excitement as well as trepidation as to what would happen following this unique and major event. The political destiny of the world's largest democracy would lie in the hands of an infinitesimal portion of the population – the political executive. India's new institutions had new operators to act in new conditions. There were few precedents. Within this Westminster system, refounded in India with its emphasis on executive flexibility and ambiguity, the leading political figures often had conflicting opinions and interpretations as to their powers. The relationship between Nehru as Prime Minister and other leading political figures, such as Patel as deputy Prime Minister, Prasad as President, and their definitions of their roles, would forge a new India. This paper revisits those debates and ideas in the first decade following independence, which allow greater understanding of the workings and conventions of today's Indian executive.