Category: New Voices
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The Military, Constitutional Democracy, and Egypt
—Ozan Varol, Lewis & Clark Law School [Editors’ Note: In this forum on Egypt and New Perspectives on Constitution-Making, three young scholars of comparative constitutional law – Ozan Varol, Will Partlett, and David Landau – discuss their recent work on constitution-making and democratic transitions, focusing on Egypt.
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The value of case-specific inquiry in comparative constitutional law methodology: Preliminary thoughts and questions
—Claudia E. Haupt, Associate-in-Law, Columbia University What exactly are we doing when we engage in comparative constitutional inquiry? How do we choose the parameters of comparison? How do we determine whether we ought to engage in a large sample size (or large-N) or a small sample size (or small-N) study?
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Our Electoral Exceptionalism
—Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago In all countries that employ single-member districts (or small multimember districts), redistricting is a vital issue. How districts are drawn influences, among other things, how competitive races will be, how many members of minority groups will be elected, and which party will control a majority in the legislature.…
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Explaining Improbable Cases of Judicial Independence: The Example of Uganda
–Johanna Kalb, Loyola University, New Orleans In a recent editorial in the Daily Monitor, law professor Busingye Kabumba of Makerere University in Kampala describes the country’s 1995 Constitution as “essentially an illusion.”[1] While the first article of the Ugandan Constitution gives “[a]ll power to the people,” Professor Kabumba suggests that the shared perception among Ugandans…