3 · Three questions that classify any constitution
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You now know what a constitution does. Here is how to read one fast. Ask three questions, in this order, of any constitution on earth, and you can place it. The rest of the course is these three questions, each opened up.
Question 1 (horizontal): who holds executive power, and how is it tied to the legislature?
This is the question that sorts the world's democracies into the three big families, and it is Section 2.
| Family | Who runs the executive | How it links to the legislature |
|---|---|---|
| Parliamentary | A prime minister and cabinet | They SIT IN the legislature and survive only on its confidence |
| Presidential | A separately elected president | SEPARATE from the legislature, fixed term, cannot be voted out politically |
| Semi-presidential | A president AND a prime minister | The president is separately elected; the premier answers to the legislature |
The whole question is the relationship between the person who runs the government day to day and the assembly that makes the law. Are they fused or separated? Can one dismiss the other? Section 2 is that relationship, three ways.
Question 2 (territorial): federal or unitary?
Does the constitution divide power across territory so that regional governments hold guaranteed powers of their own (federal), or does it keep sovereignty at the center and let regions exist on the center's terms (unitary)? Course 1 taught that in the United States "cities are creatures of the state." This question asks the level up: are the STATES creatures of the nation, or co-sovereigns the nation cannot abolish? A later course in this path develops the middle layer in depth; here you learn to spot which model a constitution chose, in Section 3.
Question 3 (form): codified or uncodified, rigid or flexible?
Two sub-questions, both about the physical and legal SHAPE of the constitution.
- Codified or uncodified. Is it gathered into one written, capital-C document (most countries), or scattered across statutes, court decisions, and conventions with no single text (the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Israel)?
- Rigid or flexible. How much harder is it to change the constitution than to pass an ordinary law? A little (flexible) or a lot (rigid)?
These are also Section 3.
Read all three, because a country is all three at once
A real constitution answers all three questions simultaneously, and the answers are independent.
| Country | Horizontal | Territorial | Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Presidential | Federal | Codified, rigid |
| United Kingdom | Parliamentary | Unitary (with devolution) | Uncodified, flexible |
| Germany | Parliamentary | Federal | Codified, rigid |
| France | Semi-presidential | Unitary | Codified |
No single answer tells you much; the combination is the portrait. The United States and Germany are both federal and both codified, yet one is presidential and one parliamentary. France and the United Kingdom are both unitary at heart, yet one is codified and semi-presidential and the other uncodified and parliamentary. Learn to read all three axes, and any constitution becomes legible. This is comparative description, not legal advice.
Sources
- Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in thirty-six countries. Yale University Press.
- Elkins, Z., Ginsburg, T., & Melton, J. (2009). The endurance of national constitutions. Cambridge University Press.
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