Constitutions and the struggle for political order: a study in the modernization of political traditions

Abstract

The constitutions of the last two centuries are monuments to an eminently modern enterprise: the reconstruction of the political order by rational human effort. Constitution-making is a deliberate attempt at institution-building at the fundamental level of laying down the normative and legal foundations of the political order. Framing a constitution always purports to be an act of foundation; an act intended to break with the past, and with the existing cultural and institutional traditions, in which principled discussions take the place of everyday horse-trading in politics.