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Growing public discontent with the performance and quality of many contemporary democracies makes them vulnerable to popular pressures to profoundly transform or replace their constitutions. However, there is little systematic academic discussion on the legal and political challenges that these events pose to democratic principles and practices. This book, a collaborative effort by legal scholars and political scientists, analyzes these challenges from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It fills a theoretical vacuum by examining the possibility that constitutions might be replaced within a democratic regime, while exploring the conditions under which these processes are more compatible or less compatible with democratic principles. It also calls attention to the real-world political importance of the phenomenon, because recent episodes of constitutional redrafting in countries including Kenya, Poland, Venezuela and Hungary suggest that some aspects of these processes may be associated with either the improvement or the gradual erosion of democracy.

Growing public discontent with the performance and quality of many contemporary democracies makes them vulnerable to popular pressures to profoundly transform or replace their constitutions. However, there is little systematic academic discussion on the legal and political challenges that these events pose to democratic principles and practices. This book, a collaborative effort by legal scholars and political scientists, analyzes these challenges from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It fills a theoretical vacuum by examining the possibility that constitutions might be replaced within a democratic regime, while exploring the conditions under which these processes are more compatible or less compatible with democratic principles. It also calls attention to the real-world political importance of the phenomenon, because recent episodes of constitutional redrafting in countries including Kenya, Poland, Venezuela and Hungary suggest that some aspects of these processes may be associated with either the improvement or the gradual erosion of democracy.

Negretto provides the first systematic explanation of the origins of constitutional designs from an analytical, historical and comparative perspective. Based on analysis of constitutional change in Latin America from 1900 to 2008 and four detailed case studies, Negretto shows the main determinants of constitutional choice are the past performance of constitutions in providing effective and legitimate instruments of government and the strategic interests of the actors who have influence over institutional selection. The book explains how governance problems shape the general guidelines for reform, while strategic calculations and power resources affect the selection of specific alternatives of design. It emphasizes the importance of events that trigger reform and the designers' level of electoral uncertainty for understanding the relative impact of short-term partisan interests on constitution writing. Negretto's study challenges predominant theories of institutional choice and paves the way for the development of a new research agenda on institutional change

El objetivo de este artículo es explicar el modelo particular de distribución de poderes que surgió del proceso constituyente de 1853-60 en Argentina. Me centraré en dos de las características centrales de este diseño: la estructura de poder presidencial y las instituciones que regularon las relaciones entre el gobierno central y las unidades regionales. En ambas dimensiones, mostraré que la constitución de 1853-60 representó una combinación inusual de elementos de presidencialismo dominante y centralismo, con principios de frenos y contrapesos y federalismo. ; The purpose of this article is to explain the particular model of power distribution that emerged from the 1853-1860 constituent process in Argentina. I will focus on two central features of this design: the structure of presidential power and the institutions that governed the relations between the central government and regional units. I will show that in both dimensions of design the Constitution of 1853-1860 represented an unusual combination of elements of presidential dominance and centralism, with principles of checks and balances and federalism.

"Constitution-Making in Comparative Perspective" published on by Oxford University Press.