Designing Constitutions for Democracy

Abstract

The last few years have witnessed a minor explosion literature in political theory seriously considering the problems of designing constitutions in the light of democratic ideals, including works with both domestic and trans-national ambitions. This paper explores the theses that a) three importantly different methodological approaches can be discerned in the literature, b) that the three approaches have complementary strengths and weaknesses, and c) that a modified approach can draw on the strengths while avoiding most of the weaknesses. Serially examining and critically evaluating ‘imaginative institutional reaction’ (e.g., Levinson (2006) or Sabato (2007)), ‘rational optimization’ (e.g., Vermeule (2007)), and ‘Aristotelian comparativism,’ (e.g., Lutz (2006)), the paper concludes that a comparative approach is recommended, but that it ought dispense with an Aristotelian orientation in favor of reference to the ideal of constitutional democracy understood as regulative ideals.