Constitutional Amendment Process Research Articles

안정과 변동

Societies are constantly changing, and legal systems are always organized in the context of those changes. Constitutions have a dual nature in the context of social change. On the one hand, it seeks to remain stable in the face of social change (stability). This helps maintain a normative and institutional core that should not be easily altered in response to social changes. On the other hand, it also aims to adapt to social changes (changeability). Constitutions themselves recognize the possibility of amendment and are open to various interpretations and applications. The two may seem contradictory, but both are essential to maintaining the normative power of a constitution.
 In some cases, however, these attributes of a constitution may be unjustifiably or unnecessarily overemphasized. For example, an overemphasis on stability during a time when the constitution should be adapting to social change can cause it to fall behind. This can include legitimate amendments or laws that fail to meet the overly stringent requirements of the amendment process or are declared unconstitutional by the constitutional court. However, changeability can become problematic as well when it is unfairly exercised. This can occur when a constitution is misinterpreted or improperly amended.
 This article examines these cases and proposes the dualization of the constitutional amendment process, eternal clauses, and the introduction of constitutional review on constitutional amendments as remedies for the problems. Although these measures are not perfect solutions, they will help preserve the rational core of constitutional stability and changeability while curbing the unwarranted exercise of each attribute.
 Although there has been considerable debate about the current constitution, the issue of revising the constitutional amendment process has received less attention. However, to improve our constitution in the future, it is essential to pay attention to the amendment process. Revising the process for amending the constitution is a crucial task in constitutional revision.

The consensus-clarifying role of deliberative mini-publics in constitutional amendment: A reply to Oran Doyle and Rachael Walsh

Abstract Oran Doyle and Rachael Walsh’s article “Constitutional Amendment and Public Will Formation: Deliberative Mini-Publics as a Tool for Consensus Democracy” is a welcome addition to the literature on Ireland’s efforts to integrate deliberative citizen-involved structures into its constitutional amendment process. We agree that the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion played a role in shaping the legal position that ultimately emerged in Irish law; we disagree, however, with the authors’ account of how that occurred. In particular, we do not believe the Irish experience supports the claim that deliberative mini-publics help to build the consensus for constitutional amendment. On the contrary, on each occasion where amendment processes incorporating a deliberative element have succeeded in Ireland, there has been clear evidence of an enduring pre-existing public consensus over the core of the amendment proposed. We suggest that the potential value of deliberative mini-publics might more accurately be seen as one of consensus-clarifying rather than consensus-building. While a mini-public may be unlikely to create a novel constitutional consensus, it can have a significant—potentially causal—role in converting a general and disparate desire for change into a specific form. That, in our view, is what occurred with the repeal and replacement of Ireland’s constitutional position on abortion. We argue that a careful analysis of the process provides tangible evidence that the Assembly affected the outcome in clear and specific ways: its significant impact was not in creating a constitutional consensus that had previously been absent, but rather, we argue, in putting on the agenda, and coalescing support around, a specific form of legal change.

스위스의 헌법개정절차와 사례에 대한 연구

In revising the constitution, there are various types of constitutional amendment procedures depending on whether or not popular initiative and referendum are introduced. For instance, Switzerland's constitutional amendment procedure has both popular initiative and referendum, but that of Korea does not have popular initiative.
 In Korea, a constitutional amendment and proposals to introduce a popular initiative to the Korean Constitution are being proposed. For example, in 2020, 148 lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment bill to introduce a national initiative. In addition, the advisory committee of the National Assembly's Special Committee on Constitutional Amendment in 2016 and the Korean Constitutional Society in 2020 respectively proposed opinions to introduce a popular initiative. In improving the Korean constitutional amendment procedure, a popular initiative is being raised as a strong alternative.
 However, because Korean constitutional revision procedure has essential referendum and the Korean National Assembly has no right to amend the proposed constitutional amendment, if a popular initiative is introduced while maintaining the current revision procedure, considerable administrative costs and inefficiencies may happen. In other words, according to the introduction of the popular initiative, constitutional amendments may be frequently proposed, and after being referred to the referendum without amendment by the National Assembly, the referendum may be carried out in each constitutional amendment. According to a certain study, each referendum costs up to 150 billion Korean won.
 Switzerland has more than 130 years of experiences and various systems in operating both referendum and popular initiative as a constitutional amendment process. Therefore, this study would like to examine Switzerland's constitutional amendment procedures and cases, and to derive implications for the Korean constitutional amendment procedure.

Charles De Gaulle’s Effect on French Politics

The fate of France’s political and constitutional history, which had been rife with instability, was altered with the establishment of the Fifth Republic. However, the transition to a new political system was quite painful. Moreover, system debates continued after the proclamation of the Fifth Republic. Especially the 1962 constitutional amendment process left France faced with a new political crisis. This research aims to reveal how Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the Fifth Republic, had an effect on the shaping of French politics and overcoming the political crises that led to the system debates.

87년 헌법 개정론의 의의와 한계

There is a need for a sequential and gradual process of constitutional reform, with targets that reflect the strong need for constitutional reform and the level of consensus at various levels.
 It is also necessary to respond to the fact that the flawed political representation system has been an essential problem of the 1987 Constitution. That is, efforts should be made not only to emphasize representation in the constitutional revision process, but also to ensure sufficient participation of the people, who hold the authorship of the constitution, in accordance with the principle of sovereign people, which is the highest principle for the formation of national power structure. As a realistic alternative, it is necessary to actively embrace the civic and deliberative public debate system in the constitutional amendment process rather than the traditional method. This can be achieved to a certain extent through legislative reforms such as the Constitutional Amendment Procedure Act or the Referendum Act, rather than constitutional amendments.
 In the end, we believe that sequential partial constitutional amendments, along with the democratic institutionalization of the constitutional amendment process, including the introduction of a deliberative public debate system, is a realistic alternative to inherit the achievements of the 1987 Constitution, improve its shortcomings, and build a new level of democratic republic.

Juridical Analysis of Presidential Term Extension Through Constitutional Amendment

One of the content materials in constitutional amendment process is Article 7 of 1945 Republic of Indonesia Constitution concerning the President's term of office being limited to only two terms. During the era of President Joko Widodo's leadership, the issue of extending presidential term into three terms resurfaced. This study raises the main issues studied are, First, how is the legal politics of extending the President's term of office in terms of the Presidential Government System. Second, what is the urgency of President's term extension in terms of the Presidential System. This research is a normative juridical research with legal materials. The approach method used is the statutory approach and the conceptual approach. This study uses a qualitative descriptive analysis technique. Based on the results of research and discussion, that First, legal politics in extending the presidential term of office, namely placing a place to filter leaders so they can advance in a direct democratic party has a logical consequence so that in a presidential system of government, the existence of political parties can certainly have an influence on support on every presidential policy taken. Second, the urgency of an extension of the term of office of President in terms of Presidential Government system, that there is no need to extend the term of office for three terms because it causes discontinuity regarding the terms of office of the President and Vice President in Indonesia in order to prevent authoritarianism. The advice from this paper is that the extension of the term of office of the President and Vice President is sufficient for 2 periods and there is no need for an extension of the term of office of the President for more than two consecutive terms, because it can lead to abuse of power.

Evaluasi Proses Amendemen Undang-Undang Dasar Tahun 1945: Perspektif Habermasian

This article evaluates the amendment process of the 1945 Constitution conducted by the MPR from 1999 to 2002. The theoretical framework used is Jürgen Habermas’s theory of law and democracy. By employing an expositive-critical-reconstructive approach, this article argues the amendment of the 1945 Constitution was inclusive but not participatory because the process was more dominated by the MPR and it did not include the active participation of ordinary citizens, including civil society groups, the mass media, and radical groups in the society. The remedy to this problem is for the MPR to institutionalize ideal conditions of deliberative democracy that grant publicity, transparency, civic participation, and rational communication between the executive body and citizens in every phase of the constitutional amendment process.

뉴노멀 시대의 헌법개정

Under the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the state should be expanded. The state should not only guarantee the safety of individuals' lives from the risk of infection, but also help individuals to maintain their own lifestyle. Meanwhile, in order to prevent the spread of infection, the state has no choice but to restrict the freedom of assembly and association of individuals.
 If there is a limit to appropriately responding to new social phenomena triggered by COVID-19 through the application of the existing legal system, constitutional amendment needs to be considered as the next step. Looking back on the history of constitutional revision of the Republic of Korea in the past, the constitution has been amended for the purpose of legitimizing power in the context of political change. The constitutional amendment have not been tried for the purpose of adapting to social change. However, it is time to consider the constitutional amendment according to the needs of the people. And in the age of new normal of COVID-19, we need to consider the constitutional amendment to actively accommodate these social changes.
 However, it is true that it is practically difficult to amend the constitution through the constitutional amendment procedure stipulated in the current constitution. What made the constitutional amendment process difficult was to prevent the constitutional amendment from being misused by powered people. However, the democracy of the Republic of Korea has now stabilized to some extent, and society has changed significantly under the current constitution. Moreover, in the current crisis situation, constitutional amendment is requested. Therefore, it is necessary to revise the constitutional amendment procedure so that it is possible to amend the constitution if it is necessary to adapt to social change.

Perbandingan Sistem Perubahan Konstitusi di Negara Amerika, Perancis dan Indonesia

A country's constitution is its most significant component. Creating a state without a constitution is a non-starter. This is due to the fact that it is the most important law at its level. As a result, understanding how a country's governing structure can be altered is critical. The author examines how the United States, France, and Indonesia have implemented a system of constitutional amendments. While France and Indonesia share a legal system, they have a separate procedure for amending their constitutions. Even though Indonesia and the United States have very different legal systems, they both use the same constitutional amendment process. Since America has the world's oldest constitution, it was chosen as the focus of the author's study. As a result, France was picked since the French Revolution had a significant impact on the legal system of several European countries, including Indonesia.

Constitutional Amendment and the Democratic Mediation of Political Disagreement: Assessing the Impact of Deliberative Mini-Publics

Ireland has been to the forefront of the constitutional turn in deliberative democracy, with referendums on same-sex marriage and abortion—held following deliberative mini-publics — attracting global attention. Little more than cursory reference has been made, however, to the recommendations of Ireland’s deliberative mini-publics that did not gain traction in the constitutional amendment process. To address this blind-spot, we present the first comprehensive account of the political take-up of recommendations for constitutional amendment made by Ireland’s deliberative mini-publics. We show that of 28 discrete recommendations, only three resulted in constitutional amendment. Recommendations were much more likely to lead to constitutional amendments if (a) they responded to real points of political disagreement where there was already some public interest in constitutional change, and (b) they did not contradict deep-seated commitments of legislative majorities. The best explanation for this record, we suggest, lies in the role that constitutional amendment processes play in the mediation of political disagreement. It is not merely the case that constitutional amendment procedures underwrite the stability of other constitutional processes; the impetus for constitutional amendment is generated through ordinary constitutional processes, with the support of a legislative majority required for constitutional change. This connects constitutional amendment with the other components of the constitutional framework for the mediation of disagreement: legislation and judicial decision-making. As such, assessments of impact must specify what role a deliberative mini-public played over and above general political attitudes.

Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking and Changing Constitutions (2019). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 338 pages, ISBN 9780190640484

When a constitutional judge willing to spend his time to give a review to a book, it is a great sign that the book has some appeals to offer. Yet, the book that is currently will be reviewed is not only discussed by one but two constitutional judges. At the end of November 2019, two constitutional judges, Saldi Isra and I Dewa Gede Palguna, discussed a book entitled “Constitutional Amendment: Making, Breaking and Changing Constitutions” written by Richard Albert. The attention to the book did not only appear in Indonesia. In the author’s origin, North America, the book received great acknowledgment from a wide range of legal and political scholars whom people often used to reference their works. Distinguished names like Bruce Ackerman, Tom Ginsburg, Ran Hirschl, Vicki Jackson and Mark Tushnet, encourage audiences to have a close examination of this recent Richard Albert’s publication. Richard Albert, himself, is not a foreign name to political science communities, as well as constitutional law academics. Albert is one of the founders and editors of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON). The book offers two distinct novelty as its strength. First, the book raised a very important issue in the constitutional discourse but rarely been discussed. the second strength of Albert’s works is his mastery in capturing the constitutional amendment process in many countries around the globe and mapping them as well as structuring their similarities.

Deliberative Mini-Publics as a Response to Populist Democratic Backsliding

Populisms come in different forms, but all involve a political rhetoric that invokes the will of a unitary people to combat perceived constraints, whether economic, legal, or technocratic. In this chapter, our focus is democratic backsliding aided by populist rhetoric. Some have suggested deliberative democracy as a means to combat this form of populism. Deliberative democracy encourages and facilitates both consultation and contestation, emphasizing plurality of voices, the legitimacy of disagreement, and the imperative of reasoned persuasion. Its participatory and inclusive character has the potential to undermine the credibility of populists’ claims to speak for a unitary people. Ireland has been widely referenced in constitutionalism’s deliberative turn, given its recent integration of deliberative mini-publics into the constitutional amendment process. Reviewing the Irish experience, we suggest that deliberative mini-publics are unlikely to reverse democratic backsliding. Populist rhetoric is fueled by the very measures intended to combat democratic backsliding: enhanced constitutional constraints merely illustrate how the will of the people is being thwarted. The virtues of Ireland’s experiment in deliberative democracy — citizen participation, integration with representative democracy, deliberation, balanced information, expertise — have all been criticized in ways that are at least consistent with populist narratives. The failure of such narratives to take hold in Ireland, we suggest, may be due to a political system that is already resistant to populist rhetoric, as well as a tradition of participatory constitutionalism. The experiment with deliberative mini-publics may have strengthened Ireland’s constitutional culture by reinforcing anti-populist features. But it cannot be assumed that this experience would be replicated in larger countries polarized along political, ethnic, or religious lines.

Unilateralism and Polarization: How Changes in Our Structural Constitution Have Caused Political Divisiveness

Political polarization is perhaps the great political problem of our time. While it has many sources, one of its most important causes, which has not been previously discussed, is the deformation of our governmental structure. That structure has been transformed from an arrangement where consensus was needed to enact important policy changes to one where the President or the Supreme Court can adopt such change unilaterally. This transformation has greatly contributed to political polarization. Congress’s delegation of authority to administrative agencies to make policy allows the President’s administration to make important regulations. Because the President represents the median of his party, not of the nation, his agents' decisions normally are more extreme than what would emerge from the congressional political process, particularly when, as is usually the case, the houses of Congress and the President are divided between the parties. Similarly, presidential claims of authority to engage in military interventions and to make substantial international agreements on their own – rather than with congressional authority as the Constitution requires – require no political consensus even on decisions of fundamental importance to the nation. Finally, the Supreme Court’s arrogation to itself of the power to create or eliminate rights also forestalls compromise, infuriating those who disagree with its ukases. These diverse constitutional departures have a common effect: They generate extreme outcomes, promote polarization, and block the dialogue that can lead to fruitful compromise. Understanding the institutional roots of polarization provides a roadmap to tempering our current discontents. Delegation should be curbed, forcing Congress to make the key decisions. The President's initiation of hostilities and executive agreements should be allowed only if they are swiftly ratified by Congress. The Supreme Court should refrain from creating or eliminating rights, leaving fundamental change to the constitutional amendment process. None of these reforms require us to begin the world anew, but instead to return to tried and tested structures. They would also transform our political culture. In a politics where compromise is routinely required, citizens would become less polarized, seeing each other less as targets or threats and more as partners in a common civic enterprise.

Zambian constitutional amendment process

The Republic of Zambia has some similarities to the Republic of Cyprus, as proved by the fact that it became an independent state from scratch in form of (presidential) republic, on the basis of a constitution which was granted by the UK. The 1991 Constitution ratified the new era of democracy (neo-constitutionalism) after the one-party form of governance and was widely amended in 1996. Some changes were put into force in January 2016 whilst complementary ones were blocked because of the failure of the 2016 Constitutional Referendum. Besides, the 2019 Constitutional Amendment needs no referendum to pass but has raised severe criticism. Anyway, both the form of the amendment process and the structure of the constitution are complicated.

Zambian constitutional amendment process

The Republic of Zambia has some similarities to the Republic of Cyprus, as proved by the fact that it became an independent state from scratch in form of (presidential) republic, on the basis of a constitution which was granted by the UK. The 1991 Constitution ratified the new era of democracy (neo-constitutionalism) after the one-party form of governance and was widely amended in 1996. Some changes were put into force in January 2016 whilst complementary ones were blocked because of the failure of the 2016 Constitutional Referendum. Besides, the 2019 Constitutional Amendment needs no referendum to pass but has raised severe criticism. Anyway, both the form of the amendment process and the structure of the constitution are complicated.

Politics of Amendment of the Vietnam’s Constitution in 2013

베트남의 2013년 헌법 개정과정과 개정된 내용을 보면, 베트남 정치·경제체제의 현재와 미래를 내다보게 해준다. 헌법 조문의 내용 분석을 통해 보면, 베트남 정치·경제체제의 기본틀은 변하지 않고 유지되고 있다. 2013년 헌법에서 국가와 사회에 대한 공산당의 영도집단으로서의 위상은 유지되었고, 국가 경제에서 국유경제부문의 주도적 역할도 존속하게 되었다. 이런 점에서 2013년 헌법 개정과정에서 개혁은 진전되지 않았다고 평가할 수 있다. 그러나, 헌법 개정과정에서 몇 가지 긍정적으로 평가할 만한 진전된 내용과 이를 초래한 요인들을 다음과 같이 들 수 있다. 첫째, 2013년 헌법은 인권 규정을 강화한 것이 중요한 특징이다. 그것은 ‘인권’ 용어를 헌법의 장 제목에 처음으로 삽입하고, 이와 관련된 조항을 앞으로 배치하여 강조하였고, 조문에 있어서도 인권에 관한 비교적 상세한 규정을 담았다. 둘째, 2013년 헌법이 정치체제상 가지는 의미는 헌법기관의 책임성을 강화하였다는 점이다. 더욱이, 공산당과 당원이 국민에 대해 책임감을 가져야 하고, 국민들의 감독을 받으며, 국민을 위해 복무해야 한다는 규정을 명문화함으로써 공산당의 책임성을 강화하였다. 정치체제의 변화와 관련하여 보다 더 긍정적 평가는 헌법 개정과정에서 활성화된 정치과정에 둘 수 있다. 헌법 개정 논의과정에서 제기된 현 체제에 반대하는 의견들을 볼 때 체제 변화에 대한 압력은 앞으로 계속 증가할 것으로 보인다. 셋째, 경제부문에서는, 국유경제부문이 국가 경제에서 주도적 역할을 수행한다는 규정을 존치하면서 시장 법칙에 따른다는 타협적 규정은 이제 국유경제의 주도성이 명목상 규정에 불과하게 되었다는 것을 표방하는 것이다. 현재와 같은 경제개혁이 진전되면서, 향후 국유경제의 주도성은 주요 의제로 되지 않을 것이며, 경제 현실이 국유경제의 주도성을 부인할 것이다. 결론적으로, 베트남의 2013년 헌법은 그 기본틀에서 1992년 헌법을 따르고 있기에 정치·경제체제상 근본적 변화를 보이지는 않으나, 헌법 조문상의 변화와 헌법 개정과정에서의 다양한 의견의 개진과 활발한 참여는 향후 장기적으로 베트남 체제 변동의 씨앗이 되리라는 전망을 갖게 해준다.The process of amendment and its contents of the Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution provides a perspective on the present and future of the Vietnamese political and economic system. In analyzing the contents of the Constitution, the basic framework of Vietnam s political and economic system remains unchanged. In the 2013 Constitution, the Communist Party s status as a leader of the state and society is maintained, and the leading role of the state-owned economy in the national economy is remained. In this sense, it can be said that reform did not progress in the revised 2013 Constitution. However, some positive assessments of the constitutional amendment process and the factors that led to it can be mentioned below. First, the 2013 Constitution is an important feature of strengthening human rights regulations. It first inserted the term human rights into a chapter’s title of the Constitution, stressed the provision of relevant provisions and contained relatively detailed provisions on human rights in its text. Second, the meaning of the 2013 Constitution on the political system is that it has strengthened the accountability of constitutional institutions. Moreover, the Communist Party s accountability has been strengthened by stipulating that the Communist Party and its members must be responsible to the people, supervised by the people, and serve the people. More positive evaluations regarding changes in the political regime can be placed in the political process activated during the constitutional reform. The opposition to the current political regime raised during the constitutional amendment discussions suggests that pressure to change the regime will continue to rise. Third, in the economic sector, the compromised rule that follows the laws of the market, while maintaining the stipulation that the state-owned economic sector plays a leading role in the national economy, indicates that the initiative of the state-owned economy is now nominal. As the current economic reforms progress, the initiative of the state-owned economy will not be the main agenda in the future, and the economic reality will deny the leadership of the state-owned economy. In conclusion, since the 2013 Constitution follows the 1992 Constitution in its framework, there is no fundamental change in the politico-economic system. However it is expected that the dynamics and changes in the process of the constitutional amendment will be the seeds for changing the political regime in the long term in Vietnam.

“Compensation Amendment” to the United States Constitution

<p>Konstytucja Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki wyróżnia się na tle konstytucji europejskich z kilku powodów. Po pierwsze, jest jedną z najkrótszych konstytucji, biorąc pod uwagę liczbę artykułów. Po drugie, należy do konstytucji sztywnych, trudno zmienianych. Po trzecie, jakiekolwiek zmiany konstytucyjne nie są wprowadzane do jej treści, ale umieszczane w postaci numerowanych poprawek. Po czwarte, od uchwalenia Konstytucji w 1789 r. wprowadzono zaledwie 27 poprawek, z czego ostatnia czekała na wejście w życie 203 lata. Ostatnia poprawka dotyczy zakazu zmiany wysokości uposażenia parlamentarzystów w trakcie kadencji i jest jedną z najciekawszych, biorąc pod uwagę jej kontekst historyczny.</p>

Constitutional Narcissism on the Couch of Psychoanalysis

Comparing the Portuguese Constitution, which has the longest unamendable clause in the world, with the silence of the Spanish Constitution regarding the language of eternity is indeed a fascinating exercise. Each State’s quantum of constitutional change seems to be quite different. One can wonder how two neighbour States, that share a heavy history of right-wing dictatorships and transitioned to democracy forty years ago, opted for such dissimilar constitutional designs. However, appearances are often misleading and an effort should be done to unveil this curious mismatch. Both legal orders suffer from what I call constitutional narcissism, which manifests itself through the urge to perpetuate the foundational constitutional moment. Unamendable clauses (Portugal) and quasi-unamendable clauses (Spain) recast one of constitutional theory’s inner paradoxes: can the constituent power of the people be petrified in one historical constituent decision and constrain future democratic transitions? And what if a volatile contemporary majority seeks to undermine the democratic process and run against the constitutional DNA achievements of the last centuries? Even if the original version of the Portuguese Constitution prohibited several provisions from ever being amended, some of these provisions were indeed modified or removed in the 1989 constitutional amendment process. This occurred without major disagreement from the political organs, scholars or the judiciary. Therefore, the vexata quaestio remains unanswered: given their obsolescence or hindrance towards good governance, should entrenchment clauses be eliminated de jure (through a channelled constitutional amendment process, such as the double amendment procedure) or de facto (through a revolutionary process materialised outside of the constitutional framework)?

True Federalism and Restructuring in Nigeria: Challenges and the Way Forward

The basic minimal structures required for a country to lay claims to the practice of federalism include a political system in which there is power sharing under a written constitution with a government consisting of at least two orders: a central or federal government and the governments of the constituent units. Each order of government receives an allocation of financial resources tailored to their specific requirements. Nigeria has been a federal state since 1954, yet even this basic requirement of federalism has not been attained in the Nigerian federalism especially in line with the postulations of Professor KC Wheare.. This paper discusses restructuring and Nigeria’s political development with emphasis on the need for a review of the present governance and political structure to allow for practice of true federalism as it were. The argument is that the long years of military rule virtually annihilated tenets of federalism as the state was administered as a unitary state in consonance with military centralized command and authority structure. In place of a system where federating units ought to independent and coordinate and the federating units contributing parts of their sovereignty to a central authority, we have is a scenario where the federating units are agents of the central government dependent on it for survival. The implication therefore is that instead of operating as co-equals, the federation is run as a unitary state against the tenets of federalism as put forward by Wheare (1964). This has led to series to political logjam, constitutional crises and litigations which has threatened the political and economic stability of the Nigerian state with the attendant effect of struggle among various ethnic groups for capture of the state power and control of resources. This has led to a deep sense of alienation and politics of ethnic identity. This paper recommends that there should be an overhaul of the political system through constitutional amendment process to expunge provisions that negate federalism and provide for implementation of true federalism. The paper also recommends that there is need to enthrone visionary and transformational leadership that will sincerely tackle and implement true federalism for the good of all.

Moves and Countermoves: Countermovement Diffusion of State Constitutional Amendments

Policy diffusion literature generally studies the adoption of similar policies across jurisdictions, but often overlooks how opposing policies or legal constraints may influence the enactment of rigid state constitutional amendments. The current study models the spread of state constitutional amendments designed to prevent future policy change. Using conditional event history analysis on all states from 1999 to 2011 the empirical models analyze the spread of same‐sex marriage prohibitive amendments across the United States. Findings suggest that the nearby adoption of opposing policies encourage state legislatures to introduce prohibitive amendments. The regional diffusion effect suggests that policymakers “protect” their jurisdiction from nearby diffusion forces or seek electoral gains by symbolic protection by committing an already existing policy into the rigid state constitutional framework. Regional policy diffusion may, therefore, be explained by a countermovement mechanism unique to the state constitutional amendment process. This protective strategy among state legislatures and citizens may explain why many policy areas are frequently codified in state constitutions.