Excerpt

In an international political climate in countries such as the United States, Egypt, and Russia, where constitutions are proving to be persistently irrelevant in raising the political level of the government and citizenry, it behooves us to take stock of what the strategic, moral, and philosophical justifications of constitutions are. The U.S. Constitution with the core liberal values that it represents in no way blocked the election of Donald Trump. In Egypt, the massive demonstrations at Tahrir Square, which expressed such deep, unquenchable democratic yearnings, failed to transform themselves into a democratic constitutional blueprint and set of practices. In Russia,…