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Constitution

About: Constitution is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 37828 publications have been published within this topic receiving 435603 citations.


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01 Jul 2003
TL;DR: In a changing world, constitutional practice is also changing as discussed by the authors, and the long tradition of expert constitution making and bringing it into the sphere of democratic participation is being challenged by new nations and new regimes that seek democratic credentials.
Abstract: • We live in an era of constitution making. Writing a constitution is part of many peace processes. New nations and radically new regimes that seek democratic credentials make writing a constitution a priority. In a changing world, constitutional practice is also changing. Twenty-first century constitutionalism is redefining the long tradition of expert constitution making and bringing it into the sphere of democratic participation.

99 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
P. A. Brunt1
TL;DR: The role of the senate in the creation of a dyarchy of emperor and senate is discussed in this paper, with a focus on the powers of the emperor, and relatively little attention is given to the role of a senate.
Abstract: Discussions of the constitution of the Principate are usually focused on the powers of the emperor, and relatively little attention is given to the role of the senate; by exception much has been written on its jurisdiction, with which I shall not be concerned. Despite his theory of a dyarchy of emperor and senate, which I do not wish to revive, Mommsen, partly because he devoted separate volumes to each, did I not exhibit the extent to which Augustus and Tiberius at least worked through the senate, and on occasions attributed to them legal powers to act by their own authority, when in reality (as I shall argue) they caused the senate to take action as the only proper means of effecting their wishes. More recently, F. de Martino in his admirable account of the Principate dedicates only one out of twenty-seven chapters to the composition, functions and procedure of the senate. For Syme it was simply an ‘organ that advertised or confirmed the decisions of the government’. This description does not bring out the truth that it was performing a role essential to Augustus' design. For though in effect he founded a monarchy, he commonly thought it expedient on necessary obtain for his measures senatorial approval. That this was the practice of Tiberius in his early years is clearly attested, and some suppose that he behaved in an entirely different manner from Augustus. This view seems to be mistaken, and the mistake is of some consequence.

98 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore four possible answers: chronological, cultural, institutional, and realist, to why the American Constitution lacks certain social and economic guarantees, which appear in most contemporary constitutions.
Abstract: Why does the American Constitution lack certain social and economic guarantees, which appear in most contemporary constitutions? This essay explores four possible answers: chronological, cultural, institutional, and realist. The chronological explanation emphasizes the fact that in the late eighteenth century, social and economic rights simply were not on the viewscreen for constitution-makers. The point is correct, but as a complete account, the chronological explanation fails for the simple reason that constitutional meaning changes over time. The institutional explanation emphasizes that Americans typically see constitutional rights not as mere goals or aspirations, but as pragmatic instruments for judicial enforcement. The difficulty with the institutional explanation is that social and economic rights can, in fact, be enforced judicially. The cultural explanation sees the absence of social and economic rights as part of the general failure of socialist movements in the United States ("American exceptionalism"). The problem with this explanation is that social and economic rights can in fact coexist with a market economy. The realist explanation places a spotlight on the underappreciated fact that the United States Supreme Court came very close, in the 1960s and 1970s, to recognizing social and economic rights under the Constitution. The Court's refusal to recognize such rights was largely a result of the presidential election of 1968 and in particular of four critical appointments by President Nixon. This is an important source of "American exceptionalism" in the domain of social and economic rights. Here as elsewhere, there is a possibility of multiple equilibria, and with a small difference or two, the United States might well have had an equilibrium that included social and economic rights.

98 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In a large and heterogeneous nation the obligation to adhere to decisions made decades or centuries ago should rest on something less contested as mentioned in this paper, without relying on a contested conception of American citizenship.
Abstract: Thomas Jefferson's famous argument that "the earth belongs to the living" - and therefore no generation has the right to rule another - is a standing challenge to anyone who believes that written constitutions (or, in many instances, statutes) are binding. Most answers to Jefferson's challenge rely, in one way or another, on a claim that being an American means owing an obligation of some kind to previous generations. These accounts should not be disparaged, but in a large and heterogeneous nation the obligation to adhere to decisions made decades or centuries ago should rest on something less contested. Our written Constitution performs two functions that justify adherence to it, without relying on a contested conception of American citizenship. First, the text, and the judgments of those who wrote and ratified it, are a source of precedents, roughly on a par with certain judicial decisions. Second, the text provides what game theory calls a "focal point": it establishes common ground on questions (such as the length of a President's term) that need to be settled one way or another. There are no other justifications, beyond these two, for requiring adherence to the text of a document adopted long ago. But this account helps explain current practices that might otherwise seem unjustifiable: an emphasis on the words of the text often without regard to the intentions of the drafters, as evidenced, for example, in the debate over the incorporation of the Bill of Rights; the highly selective use of historical sources (what is often called "law office history"); the fact that the text of the Constitution matters most for issues that are the least important; and popular attitudes about constitutional amendment.

98 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the Treaty of Lisbon is seen as one step in a long and complex process of constitutionalization in Europe comprising both the evolving European and the national level of constitutional law.
Abstract: Since years the European Union struggles with its structural and constitutional self-determination in search of a sustainable balance between con-federal and federal options, between inter-governmentalism and supranationalism. This Article understands the Treaty of Lisbon as one step in a long and complex process of constitutionalization in Europe comprising both the evolving European and the national level of constitutional law. It comments on what is sometimes regarded as the failures in the process of constitution-making, and on the improvements achieved by the reform under the Treaty of Lisbon, both in the light of the concept of multilevel constitutionalism. It explains what multilevel constitutionalism means as a theoretical approach to conceptualize the constitution of the European system as an inter-active process of establishing, dividing, organizing, and limiting powers, involving national constitutions and the supranational constitutional framework as two interdependent components of a legal system governed by constitutional pluralism instead of hierarchies. The ongoing process of trial and error in the continued reform of the Union where constitutional initiatives regularly lead to increasingly extensive debates with modest contractual results, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon yet being uncertain, is taken as an example for explaining multilevel constitutionalism in action: The article seeks to show that both, the process showing increased public participation, and the results achieved in Lisbon are characteristic for the consolidation of a multilevel constitutional structure of a new kind, based upon functioning democratic member states, complementary to them and binding them together in a supranational unit without itself being a state or aiming at statehood.

98 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20241
20232,090
20224,774
2021860
20201,213
20191,262