Zachary Elkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 286560 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Zachary Elkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Zachary |
| FAMILY NAME | Elkins |
| SIGNATURE | ELKINS Z |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7932-773X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1717 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Working with Concepts: Foundational Essays by David Collier, with Research Notes on Innovation in the Field
David Collier is among the most influential thinkers on conceptualization, foundational to social science inquiry. An eminent political scientist, he specializes in mixed methods and comparative politics. Working with Concepts brings together David Collier's most influential research on concepts and measurement, refined and reframed, to offer a systematic approach to concept analysis. It serves as a reference book for both students and seasoned s…
Expanding Your Vocabulary: A Framework for Topic Integration in Texts
Topic discovery and integration are vital for maintaining vocabularies that categorize textual corpora. Automated approaches are often computationally expensive and lack domain-specific conceptual nuance; manual approaches are costly in terms of time and potential bias. To address this dilemma, we introduce the segments-as-topic (SAT) methodology, a four-stage process that combines automation and human expertise to assess candidate topics for voc…
Ideation and Innovation in Constitutional Rights
This article explores the development of ideas in constitutional design. The point of departure is a perspective of constitutions-as-products , and thus, an examination of the invention, innovation, and an uptake of these products. The article conceptualizes constitutional innovation and distinguishes its manifestations with respect to constitutional products , the process of constitution-making, and in supporting institutions. The last two eleme…
Underestimated but Undeterred: The 27th Amendment and the Power of Tenacious Citizenship
The 200-year gestation and birth of the 27th Amendment to the US Constitution is nothing short of miraculous in its duration and improbable finish. The 27th Amendment represents a story of tenacity and personal vindication in the face of steep odds. This article recounts the event and its meaning through interviews with the protagonists
Imagining a World without the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is thought to have shaped constitutions profoundly since its adoption in 1948. The authors identify two empirical implications that should follow from such influence. First, UDHR content should be reflected in subsequent national constitutions. Second, such reflections should bear the particular marks of the UDHR itself, not those of the postwar zeitgeist more broadly. The authors examine the histo…
Militant democracy and the pre-emptive constitution: From Party Bans to Hardened Term Limits
I explore the concept of militant democracy in the context of what appear to be persistent threats to the democratic order. I begin with a reconstruction of the concept with the intention of distinguishing and identifying its historical manifestations. I trace and document two constitutional devices that exhibit the pre-emption and illiberalism that characterizes militant democracy. The first device—party restrictions—is the prototypical example …
Globalization and Policy Diffusion: Explaining Three Decades of Liberalization
Term-limit evasions and the non-compliance cycle
How Constitutional Drafters Use Comparative Evidence
This article analyzes the transcripts of constitutional deliberations in two settings of third-wave democratization, Brazil and Ukraine. The focus is on the extent and kind of references to foreign countries and political institutions. Such references are relevant to the micro-foundations of theories of institutional diffusion. The evidence suggests that foreign references in constitutional debate are as frequent as are references to core concept…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
What Can We Learn from Written Constitutions
This article responds to a set of well-known challenges to empirical research on formal institutions in comparative politics. We focus on the case of written constitutions and discuss the scholarly utility of studying such documents in the face of four analytic and theoretical challenges. Each of these challenges, in turn, implies a set of empirical questions, for which we invoke original data to sketch a broad-brushed set of answers. The data an…
Reverse mortgages and aircraft parts: The arcane referendum and the limits of citizen competence
On Constitutionalizing a Balanced Budget
Do constitutional rules that mandate a balanced budget promote fiscal discipline? Although such rules are at the heart of austerity debates across the world, we know surprisingly little about their consequences. We leverage original data on constitutional budget provisions and analyze their effect on governments' primary budget balances. We find that constitutional rules that require balanced budgets are robustly associated with fiscal discipline…
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism
The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations indicate that the classic presidential-parliamentary distinction, and the semi-presidential category, may not be syst…
On the Interpretability of Law: Lessons from the Decoding of National Constitutions
An implicit element of many theories of constitutional enforcement is the degree to which those subject to constitutional law can agree on what its provisions mean (call this constitutionalinterpretability). Unfortunately, there is little evidence on baseline levels of constitutional interpretability or the variance therein. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature, by assessing the effect of contextual, textual and interpreter chara…
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy of topics 2 .In recent years, scholars of democracy -noting the symptoms of diffusion in their own phenomenon of interest -have produced an inspirational set of studies on the process (Starr, 1991; Markoff, 1996; O'Laughlin, Ward, et al., 1998; Coppedge and Brinks, 1999).These studies provide much needed confi rmation, and in some cases, elaboration, of a powerful mechanism of instit…
Diffusion and the Constitutionalization of Europe
This article begins with a rather forceful defense of the explanatory role of formal institutions—and, in particular, constitutions—in the study of democratization. Important aspects of constitutions play a significant part in shaping the quality, type, and survival of institutional arrangements in new democracies. With this assumption, the article turns seriously to theories of constitutional design, any of which must grapple with the overwhelmi…
The Endurance of National Constitutions
Constitutions are supposed to provide an enduring structure for politics. Yet only half live more than nine years. Why is it that some constitutions endure while others do not? In The Endurance of National Constitutions Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton examine the causes of constitutional endurance from an institutional perspective. Supported by an original set of cross-national historical data, theirs is the first comprehensive stud…
Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter
Constitution-making is a ubiquitous but poorly understood phenomenon. There is much speculation but relatively little evidence about the impact of different design processes on constitutional outcomes. Much of the debate reduces to the question of who is involved in the process and when. We consider two central issues in this regard. The first is the problem of institutional self-dealing, or whether governmental organs that have something to gain…
Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States
We investigate whether political institutions can promote attachment to the state in multiethnic societies. Building on literatures on nationalism, democratization, and conflict resolution, we discuss the importance of attachment, understood as a psychological identification with, and pride in, the state. We construct a model of state attachment, specifying the individual-, group-, and state-level conditions that foster it. Then, using cross-nati…
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960–2000
Over the past forty-five years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment. The proliferation of BITs during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal. These intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors, including protection of contractual rights and the right to international ar…
On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework
This article makes a conceptual and theoretical contribution to the study of diffusion. The authors suggest that the concept of diffusion be reserved for processes (not outcomes) characterized by a certain uncoordinated interdependence. Theoretically, the authors identify the principal sources of clustered policy reforms. They then clarify the characteristics specific to diffusion mechanisms and introduce a categorization of such processes. In pa…
Chapter 11 Globalization and Policy Diffusion Explaining Three Decades of Liberalization
The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy
One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypoth…
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In‐Group Pride
One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. However, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in‐group pride more benignly, suggesting that such pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward the out‐group. In this article, we focus on a substantively interesting case of in‐group/out‐group attitudes—national pride and hostility toward immigrants. We explore the relationship in two fundament…
The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy
One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypoth…
On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework
This article makes a conceptual and theoretical contribution to the study of diffusion. The authors suggest that the concept of diffusion be reserved for processes (not outcomes) characterized by a certain uncoordinated interdependence. Theoretically, the authors identify the principal sources of clustered policy reforms. They then clarify the characteristics specific to diffusion mechanisms and introduce a categorization of such processes. In pa…
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960–2000
Over the past forty-five years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment. The proliferation of BITs during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal. These intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors, including protection of contractual rights and the right to international ar…
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In‐Group Pride
One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. However, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in‐group pride more benignly, suggesting that such pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward the out‐group. In this article, we focus on a substantively interesting case of in‐group/out‐group attitudes—national pride and hostility toward immigrants. We explore the relationship in two fundament…
Gradations of Democracy? Empirical Tests of Alternative Conceptualizations
11][12], is surprising.An insistence on dichotomous measures appears to neglect the advances in data collection and analysis that would allow for the more precise measurement of gradations (Bollen and Jackman 1989, 616-619).Also, their position seems insensitive to the incremental, and sometimes partial, process that characterizes many democratic transitions.Thus, dichotomous measures appear both methodologically regressive and lacking in face va…
Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States
We investigate whether political institutions can promote attachment to the state in multiethnic societies. Building on literatures on nationalism, democratization, and conflict resolution, we discuss the importance of attachment, understood as a psychological identification with, and pride in, the state. We construct a model of state attachment, specifying the individual-, group-, and state-level conditions that foster it. Then, using cross-nati…
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism
The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations indicate that the classic presidential-parliamentary distinction, and the semi-presidential category, may not be syst…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter
Constitution-making is a ubiquitous but poorly understood phenomenon. There is much speculation but relatively little evidence about the impact of different design processes on constitutional outcomes. Much of the debate reduces to the question of who is involved in the process and when. We consider two central issues in this regard. The first is the problem of institutional self-dealing, or whether governmental organs that have something to gain…
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In-Group Pride
One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. \nHowever, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in-group pride more \nbenignly, suggesting that pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward \nthe out-group. In this paper, we focus on a substantively interesting case of ingroup/ \nout-group attitudes – national pride and hostility towards immigrants. We \nexplore the relationship in two fun…
On the Interpretability of Law: Lessons from the Decoding of National Constitutions
An implicit element of many theories of constitutional enforcement is the degree to which those subject to constitutional law can agree on what its provisions mean (call this constitutionalinterpretability). Unfortunately, there is little evidence on baseline levels of constitutional interpretability or the variance therein. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature, by assessing the effect of contextual, textual and interpreter chara…
Diffusion and the Constitutionalization of Europe
This article begins with a rather forceful defense of the explanatory role of formal institutions—and, in particular, constitutions—in the study of democratization. Important aspects of constitutions play a significant part in shaping the quality, type, and survival of institutional arrangements in new democracies. With this assumption, the article turns seriously to theories of constitutional design, any of which must grapple with the overwhelmi…
On Constitutionalizing a Balanced Budget
Do constitutional rules that mandate a balanced budget promote fiscal discipline? Although such rules are at the heart of austerity debates across the world, we know surprisingly little about their consequences. We leverage original data on constitutional budget provisions and analyze their effect on governments' primary budget balances. We find that constitutional rules that require balanced budgets are robustly associated with fiscal discipline…
What Can We Learn from Written Constitutions
This article responds to a set of well-known challenges to empirical research on formal institutions in comparative politics. We focus on the case of written constitutions and discuss the scholarly utility of studying such documents in the face of four analytic and theoretical challenges. Each of these challenges, in turn, implies a set of empirical questions, for which we invoke original data to sketch a broad-brushed set of answers. The data an…
Quem iria votar? Conhecendo as conseqüências do voto obrigatório no Brasil
O artigo enfoca a importância do voto obrigatório para a democracia brasileira. Através da análise de dados de surveys realizados antes das eleições presidenciais de 1994 e 1998, o artigo dimensiona as conseqüências da abolição do voto obrigatório em termos da igualdade da participação em grupos demográficos e políticos de eleitores
Term-limit evasions and the non-compliance cycle
Imagining a World without the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is thought to have shaped constitutions profoundly since its adoption in 1948. The authors identify two empirical implications that should follow from such influence. First, UDHR content should be reflected in subsequent national constitutions. Second, such reflections should bear the particular marks of the UDHR itself, not those of the postwar zeitgeist more broadly. The authors examine the histo…
Reverse mortgages and aircraft parts: The arcane referendum and the limits of citizen competence
Ideation and Innovation in Constitutional Rights
This article explores the development of ideas in constitutional design. The point of departure is a perspective of constitutions-as-products , and thus, an examination of the invention, innovation, and an uptake of these products. The article conceptualizes constitutional innovation and distinguishes its manifestations with respect to constitutional products , the process of constitution-making, and in supporting institutions. The last two eleme…
Militant democracy and the pre-emptive constitution: From Party Bans to Hardened Term Limits
I explore the concept of militant democracy in the context of what appear to be persistent threats to the democratic order. I begin with a reconstruction of the concept with the intention of distinguishing and identifying its historical manifestations. I trace and document two constitutional devices that exhibit the pre-emption and illiberalism that characterizes militant democracy. The first device—party restrictions—is the prototypical example …
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy of topics 2 .In recent years, scholars of democracy -noting the symptoms of diffusion in their own phenomenon of interest -have produced an inspirational set of studies on the process (Starr, 1991; Markoff, 1996; O'Laughlin, Ward, et al., 1998; Coppedge and Brinks, 1999).These studies provide much needed confi rmation, and in some cases, elaboration, of a powerful mechanism of instit…
Gradations of Democracy? Empirical Tests of Alternative Conceptualizations
11][12], is surprising.An insistence on dichotomous measures appears to neglect the advances in data collection and analysis that would allow for the more precise measurement of gradations (Bollen and Jackman 1989, 616-619).Also, their position seems insensitive to the incremental, and sometimes partial, process that characterizes many democratic transitions.Thus, dichotomous measures appear both methodologically regressive and lacking in face va…
Quem iria votar? Conhecendo as conseqüências do voto obrigatório no Brasil
O artigo enfoca a importância do voto obrigatório para a democracia brasileira. Através da análise de dados de surveys realizados antes das eleições presidenciais de 1994 e 1998, o artigo dimensiona as conseqüências da abolição do voto obrigatório em termos da igualdade da participação em grupos demográficos e políticos de eleitores
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In‐Group Pride
One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. However, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in‐group pride more benignly, suggesting that such pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward the out‐group. In this article, we focus on a substantively interesting case of in‐group/out‐group attitudes—national pride and hostility toward immigrants. We explore the relationship in two fundament…
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In-Group Pride
One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. \nHowever, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in-group pride more \nbenignly, suggesting that pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward \nthe out-group. In this paper, we focus on a substantively interesting case of ingroup/ \nout-group attitudes – national pride and hostility towards immigrants. We \nexplore the relationship in two fun…
Chapter 11 Globalization and Policy Diffusion Explaining Three Decades of Liberalization
The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy
One of the most important developments over the past three decades has been the spread of liberal economic ideas and policies throughout the world. These policies have affected the lives of millions of people, yet our most sophisticated political economy models do not adequately capture influences on these policy choices. Evidence suggests that the adoption of liberal economic practices is highly clustered both temporally and spatially. We hypoth…
On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework
This article makes a conceptual and theoretical contribution to the study of diffusion. The authors suggest that the concept of diffusion be reserved for processes (not outcomes) characterized by a certain uncoordinated interdependence. Theoretically, the authors identify the principal sources of clustered policy reforms. They then clarify the characteristics specific to diffusion mechanisms and introduce a categorization of such processes. In pa…
Competing for Capital: The Diffusion of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960–2000
Over the past forty-five years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment. The proliferation of BITs during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal. These intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors, including protection of contractual rights and the right to international ar…
Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States
We investigate whether political institutions can promote attachment to the state in multiethnic societies. Building on literatures on nationalism, democratization, and conflict resolution, we discuss the importance of attachment, understood as a psychological identification with, and pride in, the state. We construct a model of state attachment, specifying the individual-, group-, and state-level conditions that foster it. Then, using cross-nati…
The Endurance of National Constitutions
Constitutions are supposed to provide an enduring structure for politics. Yet only half live more than nine years. Why is it that some constitutions endure while others do not? In The Endurance of National Constitutions Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton examine the causes of constitutional endurance from an institutional perspective. Supported by an original set of cross-national historical data, theirs is the first comprehensive stud…
Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter
Constitution-making is a ubiquitous but poorly understood phenomenon. There is much speculation but relatively little evidence about the impact of different design processes on constitutional outcomes. Much of the debate reduces to the question of who is involved in the process and when. We consider two central issues in this regard. The first is the problem of institutional self-dealing, or whether governmental organs that have something to gain…
Diffusion and the Constitutionalization of Europe
This article begins with a rather forceful defense of the explanatory role of formal institutions—and, in particular, constitutions—in the study of democratization. Important aspects of constitutions play a significant part in shaping the quality, type, and survival of institutional arrangements in new democracies. With this assumption, the article turns seriously to theories of constitutional design, any of which must grapple with the overwhelmi…
On the Interpretability of Law: Lessons from the Decoding of National Constitutions
An implicit element of many theories of constitutional enforcement is the degree to which those subject to constitutional law can agree on what its provisions mean (call this constitutionalinterpretability). Unfortunately, there is little evidence on baseline levels of constitutional interpretability or the variance therein. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature, by assessing the effect of contextual, textual and interpreter chara…
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy
The weight of history and the rebuilding of Brazilian democracy of topics 2 .In recent years, scholars of democracy -noting the symptoms of diffusion in their own phenomenon of interest -have produced an inspirational set of studies on the process (Starr, 1991; Markoff, 1996; O'Laughlin, Ward, et al., 1998; Coppedge and Brinks, 1999).These studies provide much needed confi rmation, and in some cases, elaboration, of a powerful mechanism of instit…
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism
The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations indicate that the classic presidential-parliamentary distinction, and the semi-presidential category, may not be syst…
On Constitutionalizing a Balanced Budget
Do constitutional rules that mandate a balanced budget promote fiscal discipline? Although such rules are at the heart of austerity debates across the world, we know surprisingly little about their consequences. We leverage original data on constitutional budget provisions and analyze their effect on governments' primary budget balances. We find that constitutional rules that require balanced budgets are robustly associated with fiscal discipline…
Globalization and Policy Diffusion: Explaining Three Decades of Liberalization
Term-limit evasions and the non-compliance cycle
How Constitutional Drafters Use Comparative Evidence
This article analyzes the transcripts of constitutional deliberations in two settings of third-wave democratization, Brazil and Ukraine. The focus is on the extent and kind of references to foreign countries and political institutions. Such references are relevant to the micro-foundations of theories of institutional diffusion. The evidence suggests that foreign references in constitutional debate are as frequent as are references to core concept…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
What Can We Learn from Written Constitutions
This article responds to a set of well-known challenges to empirical research on formal institutions in comparative politics. We focus on the case of written constitutions and discuss the scholarly utility of studying such documents in the face of four analytic and theoretical challenges. Each of these challenges, in turn, implies a set of empirical questions, for which we invoke original data to sketch a broad-brushed set of answers. The data an…
Reverse mortgages and aircraft parts: The arcane referendum and the limits of citizen competence
Ideation and Innovation in Constitutional Rights
This article explores the development of ideas in constitutional design. The point of departure is a perspective of constitutions-as-products , and thus, an examination of the invention, innovation, and an uptake of these products. The article conceptualizes constitutional innovation and distinguishes its manifestations with respect to constitutional products , the process of constitution-making, and in supporting institutions. The last two eleme…
Underestimated but Undeterred: The 27th Amendment and the Power of Tenacious Citizenship
The 200-year gestation and birth of the 27th Amendment to the US Constitution is nothing short of miraculous in its duration and improbable finish. The 27th Amendment represents a story of tenacity and personal vindication in the face of steep odds. This article recounts the event and its meaning through interviews with the protagonists
Imagining a World without the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is thought to have shaped constitutions profoundly since its adoption in 1948. The authors identify two empirical implications that should follow from such influence. First, UDHR content should be reflected in subsequent national constitutions. Second, such reflections should bear the particular marks of the UDHR itself, not those of the postwar zeitgeist more broadly. The authors examine the histo…
Political science (24 works) · Law (23 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (18 works) · Economics (13 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Constitution (9 works) · Law and economics (9 works)