Three takes on comparative constitutional history

Abstract

A review of The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World, by Linda Colley, New York, Liveright, 2021, 512 pp, $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-0871403162; Modern Constitutionalism: Origin and Manifestations. England – North America – France – Germany – Europe/European Union – Latin America, by Horst Dippel, Clark, Talbot Publishing, 2 vols, 2022, xxii + 546, x +547-1177 pp, $295.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-1616196769; The Story of Constitutions: Discovering the We in Us, by Wim Voermans, translated by Brendan Monaghan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 388 pp, £22.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-1009385046 [published originally in Dutch as Wim Voermans, Het verhaal van de grondwet: zoeken naar wij, Amsterdam, Prometheus, 2019, 512 pp, €34.99 (hbk), ISBN 978-9044640014]

Keywords:

• comparative constitutionalism
• comparative constitutional studies
• constitutional history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors, subject to footnote 15 above.

Notes

1 Three-quarters of the constitutions currently in effect have been adopted since the mid-1970s.

2 The figures are striking. Comparative data shows that the average national constitution in force today protects 48 rights, an all-time high. The proposed new constitution for Chile (rejected in a national referendum in September 2022), for example, aimed to protect over 100 different rights – more than any national constitution. See generally David Law and Mila Versteeg, ‘The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism’ (2011) 99 California Law Review 1163–257; Zachary Elkins and Tom Ginsburg, ‘Characteristics of National Constitutions, Version 3.0’ (Comparative Constitutions Project, 20 May 2021) https://perma.cc/RZ36-4JW6 (accessed 1 March 2024).

3 In 1910, for example, less than a quarter of existing constitutions included some judicial review authority. About 100 years later, in 2008, 158 of 191 (82%) national constitutions explicitly authorised judicial bodies to guard the constitution and its provisions from violations, including by the legislature. See Tom Ginsburg, ‘The Global Spread of Constitutional Review’ in Keith E Whittington, R Daniel Kelemen, Gregory A Caldeira (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics (OUP 2008) 81–98; Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg, ‘Why Do Countries Adopt Constitutional Review?’ (2014) 30 Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 587–622. In 2020, 171 (88%) of the 195 national constitutions in effect that year enshrined the practice of judicial review, and 181 (93%) entrenched constitutional interpretation by courts.

4 Ran Hirschl, Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law (Harvard UP 2014); Ran Hirschl, ‘From Comparative Constitutional Law to Comparative Constitutional Studies’ (2013) 11 International Journal of Constitutional Law 1–12.

5 See eg Francesco Biagi, Justin O Frosini and Jason Mazzone (eds), Comparative Constitutional History, vol 2 (History of European Political and Constitutional Thought 10, Brill 2022); William Partlett, ‘Historiography and Constitutional Adjudication’ (2023) 86 Modern Law Review 629–58; Howard Schweber, ‘Continuity and Change in Constitutional Historiographies’ (2019) 5 Constitutional Studies 141–73; Daphne Barak-Erez, ‘History and Memory in Constitutional Adjudication’ (2017) 45 Federal Law Review 1–16; Renáta Uitz, Constitutions, Courts, and History: Historical Narratives in Constitutional Adjudication (Central European UP 2005).

6 A recent stream of articles and edited volumes aims to address this glaring scholarly lacuna, by offering an initial contemplation of key methodological and substantive themes. See eg Francesco Biagi, Justin O Frosini and Jason Mazzone (eds), Comparative Constitutional History, vol. 1 (History of European Political and Constitutional Thought 3, Brill 2020); Ulrike Müssig, ‘Kopernik and ReConFort: A Copernican Turn in Comparative Constitutional History?’ (2019) 37 Giornale di Storia Costituzionale 5–24; Justin Collings, ‘What Should Comparative Constitutional History Compare?’ (2017) 2 University of Illinois Law Review 475–96.

7 See Ran Hirschl, ‘“Remembrance of Things Past”’ (2015) 13 International Journal of Constitutional Law 1–7.

8 Beacon Press 1966.

9 CUP 1979.

10 Wiley-Blackwell 1993.

11 CUP 1973.

12 Random House 2020.

13 See eg Douglass North and Barry Weingast, ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’ (1989) 49 Journal of Economic History 803–32.

14 Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton, The Endurance of National Constitutions (CUP 2009).

15 The English version of Voermans’ book was published in 2023 under the auspices of a CUP book series that one of us (Hirschl) co-edits alongside Tom Ginsburg and Zachary Elkins. The original Dutch version was published a few years ago under the title Het verhaal van de grondwet: zoeken naar wij (Prometheus 2019). It is addressed here not only because the original version was published five years ago under separate auspices, but also because there cannot be doubt about the book’s grandeur or its direct relevance to the theme of this essay.

16 Free Press 1992.

17 Harvill Secker 2014.

18 See generally Gary J Jacobsohn, Constitutional Identity (Harvard UP 2010).

19 David S Law and Mila Versteeg, ‘Sham Constitutions’ (2013) 101 California Law Review 863–952: 885.

20 See generally Roberto Gargarella, Latin American Constitutionalism, 1810-2010: The Engine Room of the Constitution (OUP 2013); Conrado Hübner Mendes, Roberto Gargarella, and Sebastián Guidi (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Constitutional Law in Latin America (OUP 2021); Thomas Duve, ‘Indigenous Rights: Latin America’ in Markus D Dubber and Christopher Tomlins (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Legal History (OUP 2018) 817–38.

21 See eg Michael Mandel, ‘A Brief History of the New Constitutionalism, or “How We Changed Everything so That Everything Would Remain the Same”’ (1998) 32 Israel Law Review 250–300.

22 See eg (n 5), and in particular, Biagi, Frosini and Mazzone (n 5); Partlett (n 5).