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Methodology
Constitution Writing Database
The constitution writing dataset draws on information from many sources. Whenever possible, the case files contain citations to documentary evidence, including newspaper articles, printed public statements, laws, yearbooks, and scholarly writing. Wire service reports from newspapers around the world, as reproduced in the Lexis-Nexis electronic database, have made important contributions. The prefaces in Constitutions of the Countries of the World have also proven helpful. In some cases the research team has tried to tap the knowledge of consultants, experts, or participants who had a privileged view of the process.
Two tools on this site are helpful for finding the sources used in compiling the database. First, the “Case File," the coding sheet, contains the original number code assigned for each variable in the dataset, some brief explanations, and information about sources consulted (last name or title and a page number). The full citation to the work consulted is available in a second resource, the project bibliography.
Some errors may remain and in almost all instances there are some questions for which the research team was unable to find answers. Please feel free to provide additions or corrections.
Substantive Terms Database
The second database (forthcoming fall 2005) contains information on selected substantive terms that appeared in the text of a constitution. In data source is the text of the constitution itself. The research team posed a set of questions about each text and recorded the answers on a coding sheet. Because constitutions are sometimes vague, and because one passage may take away powers or rights granted in another, there may be occasional disagreements about the proper way to categorize a term. We welcome efforts to reconcile the coding offered here with coding that appears in other sources.