The Nation-State Foundations of Constitutional Compliance

Peter Grajzl, Jerg Gutmann and Stefan Voigt

No 76, ILE Working Paper Series from University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics

Abstract: We bring attention to a previously overlooked determinant of de jure-de facto constitutional gaps: a polity's transition to a nation-state. We argue that nation-statehood, predicated on the formation of a strong sense of national identity, lowers the government's incentive to violate constitutional provisions. To test our theory, we use a recently released longitudinal database on constitutional compliance and exploit variation in the timing of countries' attainment of nation-statehood. Our empirical findings substantiate our hypothesis. Based on our preferred estimation approach, nation-statehood bolsters both overall constitutional compliance and constitutional compliance within the subdomains of basic rights, civil rights, and property rights & the rule of law. The estimated long-run effects of nation-statehood on constitutional compliance are considerable in size. Our analysis, thus, illuminates the foundational role of nation-statehood in fostering constitutional compliance.

Keywords: constitutional compliance; de jure-de facto gap; nation-state; national identity; statehood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D72 K10 K42 P51 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279748/1/ile-wp-2023-76.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ilewps:76

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ILE Working Paper Series from University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().