Political Constitutions

Explores how political constitutions manage disagreement through self-government, political accountability, and institutional design.

This Element explores the theory and practice of political constitutions, being those arrangements that prioritize political processes and institutions to secure democratic governance, the rule of law, and human rights. It traces this idea across three inquiries into how to describe a constitution, how to design it, and what is political about it.This Element explores the theory and practice of political constitutions, being those arrangements that prioritize political processes and institutions to secure democratic governance, the rule of law, and human rights. It traces this idea across three inquiries into how to describe a constitution, how to design a constitution, and what is political about a constitution. Throughout, the relationships between political community, disagreement, and institutional design are explored and political constitutions are defended as pluralistic and resilient understandings of democratic participation and political equality. This helps to explain why political constitutions are well placed to resist the challenge of populism.