We propose a framework to explain why some societies may end up with different constitutional solutions to the problem of maintaining order in the face of self-interested behavior. Though the salient intellectual tradition since Hobbes has focused on how institutional design is used to eradicate...

Post-World War II, much of international law and comparative law has been directed to the question of securing human rights. As rights jurisprudence developed, so too did a focus on national and international courts as the source of the basic guarantees owed to citizens by all states. As a...

In this paper we use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 201 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of...

This article introduces a novel database that measures governments’ compliance with national constitutions. It combines information on de jure constitutional rules with data on their de facto implementation. The individual compliance indicators can be grouped into four categories that we...

We explore why some national constitutions adapt to domestic and foreign challenges through incremental amendments, while others are abandoned and replaced wholesale. Existing studies point to the importance of constitutional scope, or the range of enumerated issues. We go further by...