Comparative Constitutions Project

The Comparative Constitutions Project is an academic study of the content of the world's constitutions from 1789 to 2022, with yearly updates. The project was founded by Zachary Elkins and Tom Ginsburg in 2005 when they were colleagues at the University of Illinois and fellows at the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research.[1] The primary objective of the project is to understand the origins and consequences of constitutional choices.[2] Most of the seed money for the project came from the Cline Center, as well as two successive grants from the National Science Foundation.[3][4] James Melton, a graduate student at Illinois, joined Elkins and Ginsburg as a full collaborator before leaving academia in 2015. The project continues to be administered by Elkins and Ginsburg as a collaboration between the University of Texas and the University of Chicago, where they are based, respectively.[5][6]

  1. ^ The American Bar Foundation. "The Comparative Constitutions Project." 2013. Researching Law Vol. 24, No. 4. https://www.americanbarfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/rl_vol._24_no._4_fall_2013.pdf
  2. ^ "Comparative Constitutions Project - Informing Constitutional Design". Comparative Constitutions Project. August 8, 2023. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  3. ^ "Comparative Constitutions Project | Cline Center". clinecenter.illinois.edu. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
  4. ^ Elkins, Zachary and Tom Ginsburg. "Formal Characteristics of National Constitutions: A Cross-National Historical Dataset." National Science Foundation, Award Nos. 0648288 and 0819102. Online at https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0648288&HistoricalAwards=false and https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0819102&HistoricalAwards=false
  5. ^ "Comparative Constitutions Project - Informing Constitutional Design". Comparative Constitutions Project. 2023-08-08. Retrieved 2023-09-13.
  6. ^ Alex Reshanov. "Laws of the Lands: Exploring the World's Constitutions." Life and Letters. March 22, 2023.