Leader characteristics and constitutional compliance

While research in constitutional economics has made important progress recent decades, the factors determining whether a constitution is complied with have only received scant attention. We contribute to that narrow literature by studying how personal traits of political leaders are associated compliance. Compliance levels 943 between 1950 and 2010 can be explained their education, entry into office, experience, military background, they members extreme left-wing parties. Specifically, under former officers Communist leaders, compliance significantly lower. The combined effect these two corresponds difference democracy nondemocracy. This implies difficult normative question, which we discuss our conclusion: Should constitutions set barriers for high offices based on leader characteristics?