Abstract

AbstractConstitutional amendment rules have traditionally been considered the most important part of a constitution. Nevertheless, recent empirical analyses argue that constitutional amendment rules do not matter at all. This dispute is due to the misuse of independent and dependent variables and inappropriate methodology. Using the Veto Players approach to measure constitutional rigidity, this article proposes a new index covering ninety-four democratic countries. It starts by explaining the underlying logic of the veto players approach and describing the specific derivation of the rules for the construction of the rigidity index, which aggregates all institutional provisions in a logically consistent way. It then explains why the lack of constitutional rigidity is anecessary but not sufficientcondition for significant constitutional amendments in democratic countries. Finally, the author creates a new dataset on thesignificanceof constitutional amendments and estimates the appropriate (heteroskedastic) model, which corroborates the theoretical expectations and demonstrates that more significant amendments lead to a better fit.

Highlights

  • John Burgess (1844–1931), the former dean of Columbia University, is one of the founders of American Political Science

  • Each component is not sufficient on its own. While they can assess the institutional component by looking at the constitution, the frequency of amendments depends on a host of social and historical factors: ‘we regress the amendment rate on a set of amendment procedure variables as well as a host of factors that should predict political reform more generally, including those factors included in our model of constitutional duration’ (GM 2015, 695)

  • I started my analysis with a puzzle generated by the mismatch between the theoretical literature and empirical results on the importance of constitutional amendments

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Summary

The Literature on Constitutional Rigidity

Constitutions systematically involve two types of items (in addition to Burgess’s ‘most important’ amending clauses): human rights and the rules of the political game, which both require time consistency. In Greece (Art. 54), the electoral system is protected by two alternative amendment procedures: if the new electoral law is supported by a two-thirds majority in parliament, it is applied in the election; if not, it ‘shall be applicable as of the elections after the immediately following ones’ Because such rules are consequential for the political game, students of constitutions have long studied the issue of constitutional amendment provisions under different names, including ‘constitutional entrenchment’, ‘constitutional rigidity’ (or their opposite, ‘constitutional flexibility’). Cent of votes) is needed, if both houses of the legislature have to approve, if the legislature has to approve the amendment in two consecutive legislature terms, or if the approval of a majority of the state legislatures is required (La Porta et al 2004, 451) Other authors, such as Rasch and Congleton (2006), use institutional information on formal amendment rules. They ‘create indexes of consensus and of the number of central government veto players or points of agreement required to secure a constitutional amendment’ (Rasch and Congleton 2006, 546). Lorenz (2005, 346) focuses on a mix of institutional and contextual variables and combines elements from Lutz, Lijphart and Anckar and Karvonen to identify ‘the type of majority rule with the number of voting arenas or actors’

Mixed Factors
Effect of Rigidity on Amendment Frequency
Measure of Bicameral Legislatures
The Epsilon Rule
Constitutional Amendment Theory and Tests
Frequency of All Amendments
Conclusions
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