Can constitutions improve democracy? Sometimes, but not always

Does adopting a constitution lead to better democracy? Not necessarily, write Todd A. Eisenstadt, A Carl LeVan, and Tofigh Maboudi, who studied 138 constitutions from a 37 year-period. They find that in many countries, the constitution-making processes did not incorporate broad public consultation, meaning that the drafters were often able to grab power by codifying benefits for themselves and for their supporters

Constitutionalism and Democracy Dataset, Version 1.0

The main objective of the CDD is to quantify the process of constitution-making since 1974. This is the first public release of any data on the process of constitution-making. This release includes data on 144 national constitutions promulgated in 119 countries from 1974 to 2014. The unit of analysis in the data is national constitutions. The data in this release includes only “new” constitutions and does not include suspended, re-installed, amended, or interim constitutions. In this release, only countries with a population larger than 500,000 are included. The authors intend to update the data by including all countries, expanding the time frame, and adding new variables which record the process of constitution-making

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Forthcoming in Governance: an

Abstract: Power sharing agreements have been widely used in Africa as paths out of civil war. However the research focus on conflict mitigation provides an inadequate guide to recent cases such as Kenya and Zimbabwe. When used in response to flawed elections, pacts guaranteeing political inclusion adversely affect government performance and democratization. Political inclusion in these cases undermines vertical relationships of accountability, increases budgetary spending, and creates conditions for policy gridlock. Analysis using three salient dimensions highlights these negative effects: origin distinguishes extra-constitutional pacts from coalitions produced by more stable institutions, function contrasts post-war cases from scenarios where the state itself faces less risk, and time horizon refers to dilemmas which weigh long term costs versus short term benefits. The conclusion suggests that the drawbacks of inclusive institutions can be moderated by options such as sunset clauses, evenhanded prosecution of human rights violations, and by strengthening checks on executive authority

Constituents Before Assembly: Participation, Deliberation, and Representation in the Crafting of New Constitutions

Under what circumstances do new constitutions improve a nation\u27s level of democracy? Between 1974 and 2014, democracy increased in 77 countries following the adoption of a new constitution, but it decreased or stayed the same in 47 others. This book demonstrates that increased participation in the forming of constitutions positively impacts levels of democracy. It is discovered that the degree of citizen participation at the \u27convening stage\u27 of constitution-making has a strong effect on levels of democracy. This finding defies the common theory that levels of democracy result from the content of constitutions, and instead lends support to \u27deliberative\u27 theories of democracy.https://ecommons.luc.edu/facultybooks/1137/thumbnail.jp

Supplemental Material - Varieties of Mistrust and American Epistemic Fragility

Supplemental Material for Varieties of Mistrust and American Epistemic Fragility by A. Carl LeVan, Assen Assenov, Kimberly Tower, and Nicolette Carnahan in Political Research Quarterly</p