Constitutions, Written and Otherwise

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. ...

Constitutions and Democratic Breakdowns

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...

Constitutions and Social Networks

The objective of the paper is to analyze the formation of social networks where individuals are allowed to engage in several groups at the same time. These group structures are interpreted here as social networks. Each group is supposed to have specific rules or constitutions governing which members may join or leave it. Given these constitutions, we consider a social network to be stable if no...

Trusting Constitutions

Two explanations for the importance of trusting constitutions are offe-red : First, constitutions that convey trust towards citizens have posi-tive effects by fostering civic virtue. A crucial factor of a trusting con-stitution is the extent to which the citizens are allowed to actively par-ticipate in the political process. We present empirical evidence thatparticipation vi...