UC Santa Barbara

This work brings constitutional studies and social movement studies together in an empirical and theoretical analysis of the relationship between constitutional change and democratization. I ask how these fields can help us explain what can be done, what democrats can do, and what democrats should do to constitutionalize democracy and democratize constitutions. I present my findings from a crossnational analysis of constitutional change and democracy (1946-2012), showing that higher rates of amendment produce greater democratization. I draw lessons from U.S. history about how human rights and democratization can be secured through movements for constitutional reform. And I examine the current trajectories of democrats in the United States, looking back to the Seattle Uprising of 1999 and three contemporaneous “movement turns” – anarchist, democratic, and global – as well as more recent developments relevant to evaluating possibilities for constitutional democratization in the U.S.A.. Each of these studies contributes to an ongoing project exploring the dynamics of constitutional revolutions and the practice of revolutionary constitutionalism.