This chapter begins with the problem of Donald Trump on social media—both the propaganda that led to his election and the companies’ seeming inability to control his supporters while in office—leading up to the January 6 2021 coup attempt. It contextualizes these events in a broader narrative about social media “political bias,” which turns out not to be a problem of bias so much as an effort by politicians to intimidate companies into under-moderating their allies. Such efforts aim to leverage the inability of the companies to exercise self-control in the face of short-term temptations and threats. Platforms, like governments, have problems with internal governance, in which personnel have incentives that diverge from the interests of the overall organization or operate under suboptimal time horizons. In the literature on governments, the tools to mitigate these problems tend to travel under the rubric of “the rule of law.” This chapter defends the idea of dispersing power to independent institutions under the control or at least supervision of diverse groups of employees and nonemployees as a key tool to create a kind of platform rule of law.

This chapter surveys constitutional design for territorially divided societies, with special application to the Middle East. Federalism, which is a standard part of the toolkit in other parts of the world, has rarely been attempted or sustained in the region. Decentralization holds more promise, and although many of the attempts so far have been ineffective, it would help a good deal. Special autonomy, in which one or more regions of a country enjoy authority over certain subjects, could work for certain areas as well. Another set of tools, categorized as rights, redistribution, and representation, operates at the level of the central government. Whatever arrangements are chosen, there is a need for institutional guarantors of the constitutional bargain over territory: courts and international actors can play this role. The chapter concludes that mechanisms providing voice are superior to those facilitating exit, and that a combination of representation and decentralization may be sufficient in many cases.

This chapter examines four cases of collapsed states from the Middle East and North Africa – Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. State collapse was marked by the breakdown of national institutions and the effective loss of a functioning central government. Different governance arrangements appeared across the territory of the country. This chapter discusses the nature of state collapse and its bearing on constitution-making processes and constitutional design. International actors may be drawn in as partisans of different factions or as potential mediators and facilitators of conflict resolution and state reconstruction. Peace-making requires the main factions to accept that the costs of fighting outweigh any benefits and to agree on structured negotiations. Sustainable peace requires agreements on governance, including potentially interim power-sharing, a constitution-making process, transitional security arrangements, and some guiding principles for a reconstructed state. While a federal or devolved governance arrangement may seem logical, the factional elites may prefer power-sharing at the center. If they do opt for a federal or devolved structure, they face vexing issues in defining the constituent units, the allocation of powers, and the nature of central institutions, which may result in an extended period of muddled governance and power politics with no constitutional clarity.

Those who ask what counts as a good constitution normally mean to ask a different question; that is, they mean to ask what counts as a good state. Most people do not care whether the wording of the constitution is elegant or crude, whether its structure is clear or complex, or whether it was produced by an elected convention or is an accident of history, and, generally, they are right not to care: what matters is the state that the constitution has produced. When the state is succeeding in its primary task of advancing its people’s well-being, the constitution is, by derivation, successful too.1 But whilst the constitution is defined by its relationship to the state – the assemblage of rules which creates that institution – it remains an instrument in its own right, distinct from the state which it creates. This chapter asks whether there are features of the constitution that can render it, in itself, good, separately from the state it constitutes. An answer to this question would need to show that the constitution, as a bare set of rules, can play a part in helping the state achieve its primary task, distinct from the construction and operation of the constitutional institutions it instantiates. Though a range of answers to this question could be given, this chapter will examine two contenders. Each of these provides ways in which the constitution might, in itself, serve to moderate disagreement within the community and help unite people behind the state.

Parties have emerged as a central concern of comparative constitutional law, and for good reason. Parties should be at the forefront of descriptive analyses of how constitutions function. In practice, for instance, the separation of powers depends heavily on the shape of the party system, as do many other aspects of constitutional performance.1 Moreover, breakdowns of party systems have been a significant factor in explaining recent episodes of democratic erosion or breakdown.2 In other words, crises of liberal democratic constitutionalism are often caused by crises in party systems.

But what is more challenging is developing a normative theory linking constitutions and parties. In other words, to what extent can constitutions (or comparative constitutional law) prevent or fix breakdowns in party systems? On that question, this chapter offers some skepticism, or at least outlines a series of challenges.

Section 17.2 develops a brief map of the different ways in which party systems break down.

Articles on politics and citizenship suggest the breadth of Afro-Latin American writers’ political thought and the depth of their political involvement. After achieving national independence, all four countries overturned colonial racial laws and write the principle of full civic and legal equality into their national constitutions. But as the Black newspapers repeatedly argued, constitutional ideals of egalitarian citizenship were consistently undercut and eroded by everyday racism and prejudice. The papers engaged deeply and critically with electoral politics in each context, offering criticism of the ways that traditional parties abused their relationships to Black political clubs, discussion of campaigns for legal change to extend civil rights, the legislative proposals of Black elected officials, and constitutional delegates. The Black press was also crucial to the creation of race-based political parties in Cuba, Brazil, and Uruguay. Black writers further engaged in debates over communism, fascism, authoritarianism, and democracy from the 1930s through the 1950s.

This chapter reviews the evidence from the Greek world for tribute and taxation. It begins with some comparative considerations about tributary regimes and the impact of Achaemenid imperialism on the fiscal development of the Greek city-states, including the Delian League and the Hellenistic kingdoms. The transition from tribute to taxation is cast as a significant indicator of state formation. A fundamental theme in ancient Greek taxation is the relationship between coercion and consent, especially how political institutions facilitate the sharing of communal burdens by the rich. Extraordinary levies on property and persons were a common feature of city-states, which Macedon and the Hellenistic kingdoms also adopted. Finally, the chapter treats indirect taxes, which are thought to provide a much larger and more regular portion of state revenue in the Greek world.

We begin by examining the key purpose of a constitution: the definition and allocation of governmental power. Following this – using examples – the chapter proceeds to illustrate the various functions that such devices are meant to perform and the differing forms that constitutions can take. It then goes on to introduce the UK constitution, noting its key characteristics and comparing them with those of constitutions elsewhere.

Perhaps due to the influence of the great man myth of history, the Constitution of the United States of America is rarely named as participating in the shaping of the just war tradition, let alone being a just war document. Yet the concerns of war and just war thinking pervade the original document and the Bill of Rights as well as and some of its later amendments and are visible not only in the story of its creation but, even more significantly, in its rhetoric. Moreover, even as it and other constitutions are the primary expression of modern legal thought, it manifests a particular way of doing just war thinking that sits uncomfortably within modern just war theory. The way it inscribes sovereignty – at both personal and national levels – while diffusing authority exacerbates the wicked problems of climate-shaped conflicts, especially those relating to nonstate actors and global inequities.

The human rights to water and sanitation (HRtWS) have their genesis, history and interpretations. They are also subject to tension, controversy and dispute. A studied approach to these foundations is necessary in order to ensure a basis for their formulation, implementation, evaluation and monitoring. For the approach to the three dimensions that make up the analytical framework used in this book, an understanding of these aspects is not only desirable but necessary. Understanding the factors involved in the realization or violation of HRtWS, the ways in which the policies actually reach them, to a greater or lesser degree, and the population groups at particular risk, pre-supposes clarity regarding the different approaches for the rights and the elements that underlie each of these. In this context, the objective of this part of the book is to provide elements for the reader to get a closer view of these fundamentals, to get a more complete understanding of the topic and, from there, to have a theoretical-conceptual basis to address drivers, policies and people.