1. Introduction; 2. How long should constitutions endure?; 3. Conceptualizing constitutions; 4. A positive theory of constitutional endurance; 5. Empirical implications of the theory: identifying risks to constitutional life; 6. An epidemiological analysis of constitutional mortality; 7. Contrasts in constitutional endurance; 8. Contexts of chronic failure; 9. Conclusion.
Based on original historical data, this book shows that key changes in design can extend constitutional life.
Zachary Elkins is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Elkins writes on issues of democracy, institutional reform, and research methodology. Much of his current research is focused on the origins and consequences of constitutional design. He also co-directs the project constitutionmaking.org, which is intended to provide constitutional drafters with usable insights from academic research on constitutional design. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from Yale University. Tom Ginsburg is Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. His books include Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (2008) and Judicial Review in New Democracies (2003), which won the American Political Science Association's C. Herman Pritchett Award for best book on law and courts. Professor Ginsburg has previously worked for The Asia Foundation, consulted on law and democratic governance programs, and served as a legal advisor at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague. James Melton is a graduate student in political science at the University of Illinois. His research focuses broadly on comparative democratization, and he is currently working on projects related to constitutional design, voter turnout, and measuring democracy.
“This book had the same effect on me as reading Goran Therborn’s
1977 New Left Review paper on the history and origins of Democracy.
I found it hard to put down and impossible to stop thinking about.
It is an agenda setting work which will hugely influence
comparative politics.”
--James Robinson, Professor of Government, Harvard University and
faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs
“Elkins and Ginsburg provide the first comprehensive analysis of
what makes constitutions survive, adapt, or collapse. Their data
collection, on every national charter going back to the 18th
Century, is staggering in its own right. But the authors also bring
to the table an array of diagnostic strategies that shed light on
what accounts for constitutional mortality. Their results force us
to reexamine what we thought we knew about the design of
institutions and the factors that contribute to, or undermine,
their stability.”
--John Carey, Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
“Though ostensibly reporting on only one aspect of a dauntingly
ambitious project in comparative constitutionalism, Ginsburg and
Elkins manage to offer insights about the most basic ideas of
"constitutions" and "constitutionalism" on almost every page. They
write limpid and accessible prose but also display methodological
sophistication. No student of constitutionalism, however defined,
can afford to neglect this book (and to look forward to the other
volumes that will emanate from their project).”
--Sanford Levinson, Professor of Law and Government, School of Law
and Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin
"[The authors] pose important questions of broad interest, and
their findings, for all their tentativeness, are striking and will
be of interest to the many communities of scholars (and the army of
international experts and consultants) interested in constitution
drafting. Readers who find data analysis deadening will be kept
alert by a lively writing style."
Perspectives on Politics, Nathan J. Brown, George Washington
University
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