The architecture of emergency constitutions

The Content of Authoritarian Constitutions

“What is the difference,” went an old joke in the Soviet Union, “between the Soviet and U.S. Constitutions? The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech; the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom after speech.” The joke captures the common intuition about the function (or dysfunction, rather) of constitutions in authoritarian regimes. Many other examples abound: citizens of North Korea m...

The Endurance of National Constitutions

The Many American Constitutions AMERICA ’ S FORGOTTEN CONSTITUTIONS

For all the disagreement and polarization that mark modern American politics, one commitment that enjoys wide-ranging support—able to unite even hardened foes on the right and on the left—is faith in the essential goodness of the federal Constitution. Members of both major political parties often clamor to display their constitutional loyalty, from establishing Constitution Day as a national ho...

Aristotelian constitutions

One of the chief problems about discussing any aspect of Aristotle's political thought, but especially his thinking about constitutions, is the apparent disorder of the Politics. The relatively loose and dialectical nature of the argument is certainly responsible for some of its unevenness: the repetitions, the omissions of promised discussions of particular topics, and the sudden turns, perhap...

The Lifespan of Written Constitutions

How long do constitutional systems persist and what explains their demise? This paper introduces a new set of data on the chronology and content of constitutions that facilitates a test of expectations about constitutional mortality and its associated risk factors. We develop a theory of constitutional longevity, in which executive ambition poses a principal threat to the constitutional order. ...