Do Constitutional Amendments Matter?

Do Constitutional Rights Matter?∗

The critique of constitutions as mere parchment barriers is as old as the practice of writing them down. Yet states put a good deal of energy into drafting constitutions and some, inevitably, do so with the intention of abiding by their provisions. The purpose of the following article is to explore this possibility. I develop a theory of constitutional enforcement and test it using data spannin...

Online Appendix Do Constitutional Rights Matter?

The following document contains supplementary information for the article “Do Constitutional Rights Matter? The Relationship between De Jure and De Facto Human Rights Protection.” This information is organized into three sections. The first provides a description of the covariates included in the analysis and summary statistics for the data used in the article. The second section provides a ful...

State Legislative Ratification of Federal Constitutional Amendments: An Overview

Do Constitutional Rights Matter? The Relationship between De Jure and De Facto Human Rights Protection∗

The critique of constitutions as mere parchment barriers is as old as the practice of writing them down. Yet states put a good deal of energy into drafting constitutions and, in some cases, do so with the intention of limiting their subsequent behavior. At least some, then, appear to view constitutions as more than merely parchment. The purpose of the following article is to explore this possib...

Dark Chocolate and Metabolic Syndrome; Do Polyphenols All that Matter?