What is it about?

The article seeks to explain what factors determine why constitutional reform is sometimes brought about by changing the wording of the constitutional document (explicit change), and sometimes by changing the meaning of the constitution while leaving the constitutional text itself unaltered (implicit change). The results show that three factors stand out as important determinants for constitutional change: constitutional rigidity, public opinion and the number of cabinet parties.

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Why is it important?

Previous research done on constitutional change has mainly been content with providing descriptions of how constitutional reforms are accomplished in different political systems. What is still missing in the literature on constitutional change is theoretically grounded research efforts devoted to explaining cross-national variation in the use of competing modes for bringing about constitutional change. The current study has taken the first steps towards a general theory of constitutional change by formulating and testing a number of rival hypotheses on what explains how constitutional reforms are brought about.

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This page is a summary of: Explaining constitutional change: making sense of cross-national variation among European Union member states, Journal of European Public Policy, May 2015, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2015.1043323.
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