Constitutional democracy is in decline and many would-be autocrats try to transgress constitutional constraints. Here, we introduce the concept of militant constitutionalism, which suggests a number of constitutional rules that could make constitutions more resilient to attempts to undermine...

Over 10 years ago, Feld and Voigt (2003) introduced the first indicator for objectively meas-uring the actual independence of the judiciary and demonstrated its utility in a large cross-section of countries. The indicator has been widely used, but also criticized. This paper pre-sents more...

No other religion's role in politics is as controversial as that of Islam – at least in Western societies. It has been claimed that Muslims are more likely than others to voice opinions that conflict with core elements of a free society, such as capitalism, constitutional democracy, and the...

In many modern nation states, both rich and poor, traditional law to this day plays an important role. Given the almost universal prevalence of traditional law, it is surprising how little we know about it. This is the first study that tries to take stock of traditional law from a cross-country...

Understanding corruption is at the heart of treating the dysfunctionality of many countries' public sectors. Yet, most corruption research suffers from one common problem: There is no "objective" measure of public-sector corruption for a cross-section of countries. Most studies on the...

Understanding corruption is at the heart of treating the dysfunctionality of many countries' public sectors. Yet, most corruption research suffers from one common problem: There is no "objective" measure of public-sector corruption for a cross-section of countries. Most studies on the...

Many years ago, Emmanuel Todd argued that differences in family organization - specifically the rules of inheritance, the number of generations living under one roof, and endogamous marriage - are reflected in the organization of the state. He also argued that different family types lead to...

Over the last several decades, both economists and political scientists have shown interest in coups d’état. Numerous studies have been dedicated to understanding the causes of coups. However, model uncertainty still looms large. About one hundred potential determinants of coups have been...