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The diffusion of constitutional rights

Author

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  • Goderis, Benedikt
  • Versteeg, Mila
Abstract
Constitutions are commonly regarded as uniquely national products, shaped by domestic ideals and politics. This paper develops and empirically investigates a novel hypothesis, which is that constitutions are also shaped by transnational influence, or “diffusion.” Constitutional rights can diffuse through four mechanisms: coercion, competition, learning and acculturation. To analyze diffusion in the constitutional realm, we traced the historical documents of all post-WWII constitutions and documented the presence of 108 constitutional rights. With this data, we first demonstrate and analyze the rapid global spread of constitutional rights over the past six decades. We then estimate a spatial lag model to explain their adoption. Our results show that the decision of countries to adopt a right is correlated with past adoption by their former colonizer, countries with the same legal origin, the same religion, the same former colonizer, and the same aid donor. These transnational correlations are strongest when a nation adopts its first constitution.

Suggested Citation

  • Goderis, Benedikt & Versteeg, Mila, 2014. "The diffusion of constitutional rights," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:39:y:2014:i:c:p:1-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2014.04.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2022. "Does the Threat of Overthrow Discipline the Elites? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 289-320.
    2. Emanuela Carbonara & Giuseppina Gianfreda & Enrico Santarelli & Giovanna Vallanti, 2021. "The impact of intellectual property rights on labor productivity: do constitutions matter? [Research and development in the growth process]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 884-904.
    3. Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska & Anna Lewczuk, 2022. "Constitutional overperformance: an empirical study of de facto protection of rights with no de jure equivalents," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 289-317, April.
    4. Daria Roithmayr & Alexander Isakov & David Rand, 2015. "Should Law Keep Pace with Society? Relative Update Rates Determine the Co-Evolution of Institutional Punishment and Citizen Contributions to Public Goods," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-26, June.
    5. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2020. "Do rights to resistance discipline the elites? An experiment on the threat of overthrow," Munich Papers in Political Economy 08, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    6. Christoph Engel & Alon Klement & Karen Weinshall Margel, 2017. "Diffusion of Legal Innovations: The Case of Israeli Class Actions," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2017_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Jan 2018.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Constitutions; Diffusion; Human rights; Spatial econometrics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K19 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Other
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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