How can Scotland use its new and existing powers to create a brighter economic and social future? The ambition of the Scottish Government is to create a wealthier and fairer nation. After years of debate on what powers Scotland should have, how can Scotland can use the powers it has gained...

The essay presents and explains a highly stylized story of the reactions of the structure of a university to a constitutional reform – in the university law – that radically changed the power structure from a bottom-up representative system to a top-down hierarchical system practically...

Can a constitution born in dictatorship serve democracy, or is it inevitably tainted by the circumstances of its birth? This question is central in Chilean politics today, but Chile is not alone. Roughly 20% of constitutions in force today were drafted during undemocratic periods. Chile’s...

This paper seeks to provide a critical theoretical comparative review of the effect upon democracy, constitutional reform could have on new smaller states. This paper posits that it is an untried, untested assumption that democratisation will follow, if nation states’ populations choose...

The separation of powers in a state is an essential characteristic of every democratic country, a principle present in many constitutions, most notably that of the United States. The concept is imperfectly fulfilled in the United Kingdom, given that the executive (Ministers) form part of the...

Taking into consideration the way in which the state powers work and interfere in Romania nowadays, we asked themselves whether the state of law is jeopardized. In order to provide an answer to this matter, the aim of our scientific approach is to analyse several problems that our young Romanian...

This paper studies the factors driving changes in judicial independence (JI) as incorporated in constitutions. Two indicators of constitutionally safeguarded JI are constructed. Variations in these indicators are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that...

This paper studies the factors driving changes in judicial independence (JI) as incorporated in constitutions. Two indicators of constitutionally safeguarded JI are constructed. Variations in these indicators are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that...

Most of the time, crises precede constitutions. Following a brief review of relevant historical background, this article aims to show why Iceland, after its financial collapse in 2008, is now at last on the road to adopting a new constitution to replace the provisional constitution from 1944....

Constitutions and economic policy - the theoretical nexus -- Post-socialist constitutions in a nutshell -- Regression analyses of economic effects of post-socialist constitutions -- The synthetic control approach to estimating economic effects of post-socialist constitutions -- An evolutionary...

Ethnically diverse societies have long faced the challenge of accommodating distinct and often conflictive normative orders within a single polity. Leaving the ideal of a single, homogeneous legal order aside, many Latin American states have recently acknowledged the right of indigenous peoples...

A country's form of government has important economic and political consequences, but the determinants that lead societies to choose either parliamentary or presidential systems are largely unexplored. This paper studies this choice by analyzing the factors that make countries switch from...

De jure judicial independence (JI) is the single most important predictor of de facto JI. In this paper, we describe under what conditions countries are likely to include JI in their constitutions. We describe and analyze both their original choice in this regard as well as change over time...

We study changes in the form of government as an example of endogenously determined constitutions. For a sample of 202 countries over the period 1950-2006, we find that most changes are relatively small and roughly equally likely to be either in the direction of more parliamentarian or more...

A country's form of government has important economic and political consequences, but the determinants that lead countries to choose either parliamentary or presidential systems are largely unexplored. This paper studies this choice by analyzing the factors that make countries switch from...

In Bolivien sind die Rechte für die vermehrte Beteiligung der Bevölkerung an politischen Entscheidungen mit der verstärkten Anerkennung von indigenen politischen Systemen verbunden. Die neue Verfassung, ein Paradebeispiel des "neuen Anden-Konstitutionalismus", definiert Bolivien als...

While the U.S. Constitution is difficult to amend, most states constitutions are much easier to amend. This essay explores the implications of easily amended constitutions on the nature and quality of government. Theoretically, malleable constitutions can be more innovative and responsive to...

In order to guarantee a further successful functioning of the enlarged European Union a Federal European Constitution is proposed. Six basic elements of a future European federal constitution are developed: the European commission should be turned into an European government and the European...

This paper explores the role of political stability on fiscal policy choices in a time-series analysis over 158 years on the Swiss federal level. We argue that the fiscal-commons problem of public finances is affected by the time-horizon of a finance minister. Arguably, the incentives for an...