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1 - Introduction

The Century of Constitutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

Wim Voermans
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
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Summary

189 out of 193 Nation States have a written constitution nowadays. Some 75% of them have only been put in place after 1975. Constitutions nowadays cover the global. How did this worldwide diffusion of constitutions come about? And why is it that this phenomenon is so understudied? Predominantly because traditional legal scholarship does not focus on numbers and externalities of their discipline. Law and constitutional law are imagined realities, produce of the imagination, but they are not studies this way - the bulk of legal scholarship even frowns upon such an approach. To understand why constitutions have conquered the world we have to look further afield. We need to journey through human evolution, human nature, the history of man and of thought, in search of answers for one of the most compelling and mobilising stories of our time. We need an empirical analysis of human imagination to understand.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Story of Constitutions
Discovering the We in Us
, pp. 4 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Introduction
  • Wim Voermans, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: The Story of Constitutions
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385084.002
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  • Introduction
  • Wim Voermans, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: The Story of Constitutions
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385084.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Wim Voermans, Universiteit Leiden
  • Book: The Story of Constitutions
  • Online publication: 19 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385084.002
Available formats
×