Dr. Mariana Velasco Rivera

Mariana Velasco Rivera is a postdoctoral research fellow under the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism (held by Prof. Dr. Ran Hirschl) at the University of Göttingen. She holds a J.S.D. (expected 2019) and an LL.M. from Yale Law School, and an LL.B from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Mariana’s research interests include comparative constitutional law and politics as well as constitutional theory. In her doctoral dissertation, she developed a theory of constitutional change that explains the reasons for Mexico’s high formal amendment rate between 1917-2017. The thesis develops a theory of constitutional change based on the notion of the political construction of amendment difficulty. This notion’s core idea is that amendment difficulty is not institutionally determined, but that it depends on factors such as the party system, constitutional culture, and decisions by key political actors.
Mariana’s current research is focused on applying her theory of constitutional change to different case studies such as the United States.