RAPID: Constitutional Change and Public Support for Minority Rights

保护少数人的权利是现代自由民主的标志。要做到这一点，民主国家往往依靠宪法保障。然而，在尚不存在此类权利的地方，正式保障少数群体权利往往需要进行宪法修改。尽管修改宪法具有政治、社会和经济意义，但学者们尚未充分评估宪法修改是否会转化为公民对少数群体权利的看法的变化，以及与此相关的少数群体公民本身的观点的变化。因此，修改宪法的尝试是否会导致公众更多地接受少数群体的权利，或者是否会激起对这些权利的反弹，这一点仍然没有得到充分的理论和研究。此外，目前还不清楚这些努力会如何增强或削弱少数族裔公民的政治效能感和对政治制度的支持。因此，这些问题的答案对自由民主治理的质量和稳定性具有重要影响。该项目致力于克服现有工作的这一局限，采用数据收集和研究的比较方法，审查试图修改宪法的政治影响。为此，该项目利用全民投票创造的独特条件及其对一种经常被忽视的少数群体权利--土著权利--获得支持的影响。全民公决要求公民通过或拒绝正式承认土著权利并创建土著咨询机构的宪法修正案。该项目将利用在公投之前和之后的一次民意调查，深入了解(A)公投对少数群体权利的公众支持的影响；(B)这种影响在多大程度上取决于对少数群体权利的原有支持；(C)公投结果对少数群体公民的政治态度和效力的影响。通过这样做，该项目是对修宪公投对政治态度的影响的独特审查，是对关于公众支持一般少数群体权利、特别是土著权利的现有文献的重要扩展。此外，这项研究的结果将深入了解试图改变宪法对少数族裔公民对政治制度的依恋和信任的后果。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The protection of minority rights is a hallmark of modern liberal democracy. To do so, democracies often rely on constitutional guarantees. Where such rights do not already exist, however, formally guaranteeing minority rights often requires carrying out constitutional change. Despite the political, social, and economic significance of amending a constitution, scholars have yet to fully evaluate whether constitutional change translates into changes in how citizens view minority rights and, relatedly, the views of minority citizens themselves. As a result, it remains both undertheorized and understudied whether attempts at constitutional change engender greater public acceptance of minority rights or, alternatively, instigate a backlash against them. Moreover, it is unclear how such efforts might strengthen – or undermine – minority citizens’ sense of political efficacy and support for the political system. The answers to these questions thus have important implications for the quality and stability of liberal democratic governance. The project engages with this limitation of existing work by examining the political impact of attempts at constitutional change with a comparative approach to data collection and research. To do so, the project leverages the unique conditions created by a referendum and its impact on support for an oft-overlooked form of minority rights, indigenous rights. The referendum asks citizens to either adopt or reject a constitutional amendment formally recognizing indigenous rights and creating an indigenous advisory body. Using a public opinion survey fielded in the period immediately preceding and following the referendum, the project will yield insights into (a) the impacts of the referendum on public support for minority rights; (b) the extent to which such an effect is conditioned by pre-existing support for minority rights; and (c) the impact of the referendum’s outcome on the political attitudes and efficacy of minority citizens. In doing so, the project represents a unique examination of a constitutional referendum’s impact on political attitudes and an important expansion of the existing literature on public support for minority rights in general and Indigenous rights in particular. Moreover, the findings from this research will yield insights into the consequences of attempts at constitutional change for minority citizens’ attachment and trust in the political system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.