Constitutions worldwide protect an increasingly long list of rights. Constitutional scholars point to a variety of top-down and bottom-up explanations for this pattern of rights expansion. This article, however, identifies an additional, under-explored dynamic underpinning this pattern in certain countries—i.e. the pairing of constitutional rights with various forms of structural constitutional change, as part of a trade between civil society and dominant political actors in their aspirations, or support, for constitutional change. This form of trade, the article further suggests, has potential troubling consequences for democracy: it can pave the way for the consolidation of dominant party or presidential rule in ways that limit the -term effectiveness of rights-based constitutional changes themselves, and pose a major threat to the institutional “minimum core” necessary fo...

Las constituciones a nivel mundial protegen una creciente lista de derechos. Los constitucionalistas apuntan a una variedad de explicaciones “ascendentes” y “descendentes” de estos patrones de expansión de derechos. Este artículo, sin embargo, identifica una dinámica adicional y poco explorada, que subyace a este patrón en algunos países –p.e. el emparejamiento de derechos constitucionales con varias formas de reforma constitucional estructural, como parte de un trato entre la sociedad civil y los actores políticos dominantes en sus aspiraciones, o apoyo, por reformas constitucionales. Estas formas de tratos, como sugiere este artículo, pueden traer consecuencias problemáticas para la democracia: pueden preparar el camino para la consolidación de un partido dominante o un mandato presidencial en formas que limiten la efectividad de estas mismas reformas basadas e...

Constitutions worldwide protect an increasingly long list of rights. Constitutional scholars point to a variety of top-down and bottom-up explanations for this pattern of rights expansion. This article, however, identifies an additional, under-explored dynamic underpinning this pattern in certain countries—i.e. the pairing of constitutional rights with various forms of structural constitutional change, as part of a trade between civil society and dominant political actors in their aspirations, or support, for constitutional change. This form of trade, the article further suggests, has potential troubling consequences for democracy: it can pave the way for the consolidation of dominant party or presidential rule in ways that limit the -term effectiveness of rights-based constitutional changes themselves, and pose a major threat to the institutional “minimum core” necessary fo...