Revolutionary Constitutional Compliance

Abstract

Revolutions are bottom-up movements for regime change that, if successful, overthrow and replace a society’s principal institutions. Successful revolutions are often followed by a new Constitution. We explore whether revolutionary Constitutions, all else equal, lead to higher compliance than their non-revolutionary counterparts. To do so we combine data from the Comparative Constitutional Compliance Database and the Revolutionary Episodes Dataset. We identify 15 revolutionary Constitutions, adopted between 1976 and 2010, and consider their compliance relative to that of their predecessors. We employ matching methods, drawing on up to 61 cases of (non-revolutionary) Constitutional adoptions to construct counterfactual episodes. Constitutions lead to higher compliance at least 5 years out from their adoption. At 10 years out, the positive overall compliance effect gets weaker. However, the effect remains significant for basic human and civil rights provisions.

Keywords: constitutional compliance, revolutions, revolutionary constitutions, constitutional political economy, constitutionalism, limited government, matching methods

JEL Classification: P00, P16, P48, K00, K40, H10