 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Why can’t I find a country?
If you can’t find the case you want, it may be missing for one of several reasons. Our definition of a “case” requires that the new constitution or cluster of amendments alter the character of the regime. Sometimes an amendment produces only relatively minor changes in institutional design and it does not appear here, as part of a study of constitution writing and conflict resolution, because there was not much to fight about. The income cap also excludes a few cases; these are almost exclusively in North America and Europe, although sometimes we include these in the short summaries for illustrative purposes. Finally, a process that fails to win ratification does not appear as a separate case, although notes about these negotiations may appear in the prose descriptions. In these instances, the initial, failed discussions usually become part of a protracted constitution drafting process that we do code in the database. On rare occasions so little information is available about a constitution writing processes that occurred in 1975-78 that we have dropped a case. We welcome information about these and will endeavor to post information as soon as the description is reasonably complete.