Constitutionmaking.org is a new website sponsored by the Comparative Constitutions Project and the US Institute of Peace. My friend and co-author Zach Elkins is one of the people behind it. Their goal is:
bq. …to provide designers with systematic information on design options and constitutional text, drawing on the CCP’s comprehensive dataset on the features of national constitutions since 1789. We are motivated by the simple premise that constitutional drafters benefit from a comprehensive set of options when designing governing institutions, with the understanding that any particular draft must be tailored to the local environment.
The website has the text of 720 different constitutions, reports on various topics in constitutional design, and a blog. Here’s one post on the constitutional crisis in Afghanistan. Here’s one on Hugo Chavez’s constitutional monkeying. Here’s another on the growing percentage of constitutions that specify an official language. The graph is below:
