Assessing Constitutional Performance

by Tom Ginsburg (Editor), Aziz Huq (Editor)

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 apply across the board? Or, is the choice of criteria entirely idiosyncratic? This edited volume takes on the idea of constitutional success and shows the manifold ways in which it can be understood. It collects essays from philosophers, political scientists, empiricists and legal scholars, that approach the definition of constitutional success from many different angles. It also brings together case studies from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. By exploring a varied array of constitutional histories, this book shows how complex ideas of constitutional success play out differently in different contexts and provides examples of how success can be differently defined under different circumstances.

442 pages, Paperback

Published August 30, 2016

About the author

Tom Ginsburg is Leo Spitz Professor of International Law, Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar and Professor of Political Science at The University of Chicago Law School.

Tom Ginsburg focuses on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective. He holds BA, JD, and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. One of his books, Judicial Review in New Democracies (Cambridge University Press 2003) won the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association for best book on law and courts. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, Kyushu University, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Trento. He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an effort funded by the National Science Foundation to gather and analyze the constitutions of all independent nation-states since 1789. Before entering law teaching, he served as a legal adviser at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands, and consulted with numerous international development agencies and foreign governments on legal and constitutional reform.