TITLE:
Notes on Constitutional Endurance
AUTHORS:
Dag Anckar
KEYWORDS:
Constitution; Constitutional Endurance; Constitutional Rigidity; Democracy; Endurance Research
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.5 No.1,
March
28,
2014
ABSTRACT: Among the
countries of the world there are great differences in terms of constitutional
endurance, i.e. the life span of national constitutions. Exploring these
differences the literature in this field has observed associations between
democracy and constitutional survival, and this article contributes in the form
of a case study to the still somewhat fragmentary evidence for a correlation.
Investigating a set of countries composed of former British colonies, the study
shows that clearly more than semi-democratic and non-democratic colonies, the
democratic colonies have been during independence endurance guardians. However,
the good endurance record may follow from the fact that more than other states
democracies change their constitutions by means of individual amendments to
constitutional texts rather than by constitutional turnover. There is therefore
a need for future endurance studies to probe deeper into the amendment
institution. Of several other endurance aspects that are brought to the fore in
the study, one is about regional differences and particularly about the case of
Africa, which stands out as a place for an ongoing vast constitutional muddle
and reshuffle. Indeed, of more than 80 constitutions introduced in the world in
the 1990s, no less than 38 were adopted by African states. Since several of
these transitions have implied a rejection of one-party rule and one-party
elections and a growing acceptance of competitive elections, the African
endurance gap may in the long run prove beneficial to political development.