Formal Characteristics of National Constitutions: A Cross-National Historical Dataset

是什么使成文宪法有效并经久不衰？尽管学者们越来越关注宪法制定，但关于宪法文本本身的系统知识仍然很少，更不用说它们的后果、与事实上的治理的关系，或者长期维持它们的因素。这个项目为学者和实践者提供了一个资源，让他们理解正式文本的内容，并评估基本研究问题。调查人员编制了自1789年以来所有独立国家的宪法文件、替换和修正案的年表，记录了成文宪法的广泛特点，包括政治机构的方面、关于权利的规定以及文件的长度和组织等正式特征。在描述性层面上，该数据集将使调查人员能够跟踪全球宪法变化和稳定性的模式，并制定不同宪法之间的相似性衡量标准。这将使人们能够系统地研究宪法借款和相互依存。当与其他数据集相结合时，该项目还将允许学者分析大量案例中正式宪法规则和实际政治实践之间的复杂关系。调查人员还将探讨宪法耐力的优点和决定因素，包括宪法本身的任何特征是否会影响其在不断变化的世界中的耐久性这一关键问题。这些资源将对基础研究和教学做出重大贡献，因为这些数据将增强我们对宪法文本如何随时间以及跨地区、文化和政治制度变化的理解。也许最重要的是，调查人员将向宪法设计者提供数据集和相关研究的一个版本，前提是明确的选项菜单将有助于起草过程本身。

What makes written constitutions effective and enduring? Despite increasing attention to constitution-making among scholars, there is still little systematic knowledge about constitutional texts themselves, not to mention their consequences, relationship with de facto governance, or the factors that sustain them over time. This project provides a resource for scholars and practitioners to understand the content of formal texts and to assess fundamental research questions. Having developed a chronology of constitutional documents, replacements and amendments for all independent countries since 1789, the investigators record a wide range of characteristics of the written constitution, including aspects of political institutions, provisions on rights, and formal features such as length and organization of the document. At a descriptive level, the dataset will allow the investigators to track patterns in global constitutional change and stability, and to develop measures of similarity across constitutions. This will allow systematic study of constitutional borrowing and interdependence. When combined with other datasets, the project will also allow scholars to analyze the complex relationship between formal constitutional rules and actual political practices across a large set of cases. The investigators will also explore the merits and determinants of constitutional endurance, including the crucial question of whether any features of the constitution itself can influence its durability in a world of constant change. The resource will make a significant contribution to basic research and teaching, as the data will enhance our understanding of how constitutional texts vary over time and across regions, cultures, and political systems. Perhaps most importantly, the investigators will make a version of the dataset and associated research available to constitutional designers with the assumption that a clear menu of options will assist the drafting process itself.