The first phase is to construct constitutional chronologies for all independent states in our sample. Reconstructing constitutional chronologies for all independent states is not a simple matter and we rely upon a collection of cross-national, regional, and country-level sources in order to compile the data. The magisterial Constitutions of the Countries of the World (Flanz and Blaustein 1971-present) provides invaluable background information for most countries. Other useful cross-national and regional sources include Maddex (2001), Fitzgibbon (1948), Peaslee (1950-1971), and the Political Database of the Americas at Georgetown. Of course, country-level studies are at the root of these multi-country sources and we use these more specific studies when possible (available). While we are confident that we have identified nearly all new constitutions ever written using these sources, it is quite possible that we have overlooked a fair number of amendments, especially older ones, simply because they are less well-documented. Although we are constantly adding new constitutional events as they occur, we have nearly completed this phase in terms of the historical events, with more than 2000 constitutional events occurring between 1789 and the present. To read more about the decisions made when creating the constitutional chronologies, please click the links below.

Conceptualizing Constitutions
Unit of Analysis
Sample

The second phase of our project entails acquiring English texts for every constitutional event. Thanks to the monumental efforts of several previous comparative constitutional scholars and resources at the University of Illinois library, reliable English translations of historical constitutions are available for almost all of our cases. Of the 2,224 constitutional events in our sample, we have acquired what appear to be reliable English translations of 1,162. Actually, we have identified texts for all 594 new events, but 191 of these texts are in the native language (134 of these are in Spanish and 31 are in French). We are currently investigating the possibility of getting these foreign language texts translated. Most of the texts which we have not found are amendments. Of the 1,412 amendments identified, we have only found 571 reliable English language texts (~40%), leaving 841 “amendments” left to find. However, we are hopeful that we will locate all the remaining 1062 texts, either in their original language or translated into English. While we will no doubt encounter several gaps and issues of translation, we are reassured by our thorough search for these texts that source material will not be a problem for our study. See the links below for more details about our efforts to acquire constitutional texts.

Sources of Constitutional Texts
Translation Issues

The third phase of the project is to code each constitutional event. This phase is the core of the Comparative Constitutions Project. Although the research from phases I and II is useful in its own right, the main reason for these two phases is to facilitate the coding in phase III. Please click on the links below to learn more about phase III.

Survey Instrument
Coding Procedures
Interpretation Issues
Survey Software

The data from the Comparative Constitutions Project is scheduled to be released in waves. The first data is scheduled to be released in early 2009. The first release will consist of the constitutional chronologies from phase I.

If you would like to receive occasional updates about the progress of the Comparative Constitutions Project and the schedule of future data releases, please e-mail James Melton.

Some preliminary data may be available, in incomplete form, for use by researchers associated with the project or those involved in constitutional drafting. Please contact the investigators if you have such a request.