The entrenchment of democracy

the comparative constitutional design of elections, parties and voting

This volume of essays brings together a group of leading political scientists, legal scholars, and political theorists to describe and analyze the body of constitutional law and practice within and upon democratic institutions, in particular examining how constitutional law shapes electoral democracy. Constitutional law and ...

The Story of Constitutions

Discovering the We in Us

Today, 189 out of 193 officially recognised nation-states have a written constitution, and 75% of these have been ratified since 1975. How did this worldwide diffusion of constitutions come about? In this book, Wim Voermans traces the varied and surprising story of constitutions since the ...

From parchment to practice

implementing new constitutions

From Parchment to Practice explores the set of problems that arise when a new constitution has been adopted. All new constitutions must manage a balance or tension between two forces: aspirations for social and political transformation on the one hand and demands for preservation of ...

The politico-legal dynamics of judicial review

a comparative analysis

Comparative scholarship on judicial review has paid a lot of attention to the causal impact of politics on judicial decision-making. However, the slower-moving, macro-social process through which judicial review influences societal conceptions of the law/politics relation is less well understood. Drawing on the political ...

The DNA of constitutional justice in Latin America

politics, governance, and judicial design

In recent times there has been a dramatic change in the nature and scope of constitutional justice systems in the global south. New or reformed constitutions have proliferated, protecting social, economic, and political rights. While constitutional courts in Latin America have traditionally been used as ...

Proportionality

new frontiers, new challenges

With contributions from leading scholars in constitutional law, this volume examines how carefully designed and limited doctrines of proportionality can improve judicial decision-making, how it is applied in different jurisdictions, its role on constitutionalism outside the courts, and whether the principle of proportionality actually advances ...

Assesing constitutional performance

From London to Libya, from Istanbul to Iceland, there is great interest among comparative constitutional scholars and practitioners about when a proposed constitution is likely to succeed. But what does it mean for a constitution to succeed? Are there universal criteria of success, and which ...

Reputation and judicial tactics

a theory of national and international Courts

This book argues that national and international courts seek to enhance their reputations through the strategic exercise of judicial power. Courts often cannot enforce their judgments and must rely on reputational sanctions to ensure compliance. One way to do this is for courts to improve ...

Constitutional courts as mediators

armed conflict, civil-military relations, and the rule of Law in Latin America

This book offers a new theoretical framework for understanding the mediator role played by constitutional courts in democratic conflict solving. The book proposes an informational theory of constitutional review in which constitutional courts obtain, process, and transmit information to parties in a way that reduces ...

Comparative constitutional design

This volume brings together essays by many of the leading scholars of comparative constitutional design from many perspectives to collectively assess what we know - and do not know - about the design process as well as particular institutional choices concerning executive power, constitutional amendment processes and ...

Comparative constitutional design

This volume brings together essays by many of the leading scholars of comparative constitutional design from many perspectives to collectively assess what we know - and do not know - about the design process as well as particular institutional choices concerning executive power, constitutional amendment processes and ...