How Constitutional Drafters Use Comparative Evidence

Abstract 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 concepts such as “democracy” and “freedom”. Also, actors employ foreign references mostly in order to attempt analytic comparisons across institutional models. These references mostly take the form of “endorsements” of the speaker’s favored policy, but a full third of them are negative examples (“warnings”), which lends credence to arguments about “aversive” diffusion mechanisms. Finally, the identity of countries referenced by Brazilian and Ukrainian constitution makers is analyzed. The ordering and profile of these target countries is remarkably similar despite differences in the cultural and geographic character of the two countries. Actors in both countries focused their attention on a small set of countries in the democratic “core”.