Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions

"This is the most in-depth and extensive analysis of constitutional amendments currently available. Albert takes an approach that is both comparative, covering all the regions of the world, and topical, addressing issues that have been understudied or altogether neglected. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- P. J. Galie, Choice

"Constitutional Amendments is stunningly thorough on both the different questions one might ask of amendments and the different answers different regimes have given to those questions. Albert devotes considerable time and energy to what constitutes an amendment that improves a constitution as opposed to what he calls a dismemberment (which undoes fundamental constitution principles), to the different ways in which constitutional texts incorporate amendments, as well as other matters." -- Mark A. Graber, Regents Professor, University of Maryland Carey School of Law

"This book provides essential insights into the current crisis of liberal democracy. Richard Albert not only explores how rising autocrats throughout the world have manipulated amendment rules to destroy the fundamental freedoms their constitutions aim to protect. He also advances insightful reforms that would make it far harder for liberal democracies to self-destruct in the future." -- Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University

"Provisions on amendment are arguably the most important rules in any constitution, for they condition the operation of all the others. Richard Albert tackles the topic with considerable creativity and insight, and his framework is sure to become the touchstone reference on the topic for decades to come. Magnificent." -- Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

"A masterly comparative account of constitutional amendments in theory and practice. At the same time a status quaestionis and an agenda-setter for new investigation, Richard Albert's Constitutional Amendments is destined to become a common reference in any serious discussion of constitutional design and constitutional change more generally." -- Ran Hirschl, Professor of Political Science and Law, University of Toronto; Co-President 2015-2018, International Society of Public Law

"This erudite book is provocative and thought-provoking, reflecting the author's broad and deep knowledge about constitutions' amending provisions and practices around the world. It is a work not to be missed by those interested in new scholarly thinking about how constitutions change over time." -- Vicki Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard University

"In this conceptually and geographically wide-ranging work, Richard Albert demonstrates why the topic of constitutional amendment has become central in the contemporary study of comparative constitutional law. This exceptionally important book should give scholars in the field ideas that they must incorporate into their work, whatever their specific concerns are." -- Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard University