Copied text in constitutions

Alex Hudson

- completed -

Is there ever such a thing as a tabula rasa in constitution drafting? Is the text of a constitution an original statement of a sovereign people? In reality, when writing a new constitution, drafters are usually heavily influenced by what has come before. While weighted toward the precedential texts of their own country, drafters also look abroad for guidance. This project seeks to establish the degree to which specific text has been copied between national constitutions, and to determine the factors that are most salient in predicting when copying will occur, and from which texts. This project has so far produced one article.