Principles of Constitutional Design

This book is written for anyone, anywhere sitting down to write a constitution. The book is designed to be educative for even those not engaged directly in constitutional design but who would like to come to a better understanding of the nature and problems of constitutionalism and its fundamental building blocks – especially popular sovereignty and the separation of powers. Rather than a ‘how-to-do-it’ book that explains what to do in the sense of where one should end up, it instead explains where to begin – how to go about thinking about constitutions and constitutional design before sitting down to write anything. Still, it is possible, using the detailed indexes found in the book, to determine the level of popular sovereignty one has designed into a proposed constitution and how to balance it with an approximate, appropriate level of separation of powers to enhance long-term stability.

Author Biography

Donald S. Lutz is a professor of political philosophy in the department of political science at the University of Houston, where he has been teaching since 1968. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. He is the author of eleven books, including Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History (1998), A Preface to American Political Theory, (1992), and The Origins of American Constitutionalism (1988), and numerous articles published in American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Publius: The Journal of Politics, Social Science Quarterly, the Annals of Political Science and History, and Western Political Quarterly, among others.