The Content of Authoritarian Constitutions
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چکیده
“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 might be surprised to learn that they are guaranteed rights to free speech, assembly, and association, 2 while the Constitution of Niger guarantees each citizen the right to health and education, notwithstanding the fact that the country ranks 182 nd out of 182 countries rated by the Human Development Index. 3
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