In recent times, the economic and social relevance of constitutions and potential determinants of their validity have been increasingly debated. However, we still know little about the relationships between the text of a constitution and constitutional compliance. Does the wording of a constitution matter in this context? In this paper, drawing on a sample of democratic countries, we apply econometric and machine learning tools to provide some insights on these issues. The results suggest that shorter texts and placing more emphasis on punishments for transgressions seem to be positively correlated with the compliance level. Regarding the precision of constitutional text, in turn, we find mixed evidence. Econometric modelling suggests no statistically significant relationship with constitutional compliance, and machine learning models instead indicate this feature as a potentially important determinant of constitutional compliance.

It is often argued that governments take advantage of extreme events to expand their power to the detriment of the political opposition and citizens at large. Violations of constitutional constraints are a clear indication of such opportunistic behaviour. We study whether natural disasters, conflicts and other extreme events systematically diminish governments' compliance with constitutional constraints. Our results indicate that governments are most likely to overstep their competences or disregard their responsibilities during civil conflicts, at the onset of international sanctions or following successful coups d’état. Interestingly, Cold War interventions by the United States that installed or supported a political leader led to a decrease in constitutional compliance in the target country, whereas Soviet interventions had no such effect. In contrast, banking crises and natural disasters, which threaten societies at large, but not necessarily the political elite, do not cause a significant decline in constitutional compliance.