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Few citizens know much about the constitution of their state. Some don't even know there is one. Yet state constitutions are basic instruments of our democracy. They structure state and local government and stipulate the rights of citizenship. In New York State, as in others, the Constitution mandates a periodic vote on whether the state Constitution should be revised. In New York, a mandatory ballot question is put before the voters every twenty years—"Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution and amend the same?" Seven months prior to the next such vote—which will be held on Election Day, November 4, 1997—the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government is publishing companion books on the New York State Constitution—one a sourcebook on constitutional change in New York, the other a rich history of the last constitutional convention held in New York State, that in 1967.
It is well known that the US Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times since its creation in 1787, but that number does not reflect the true extent of constitutional change in America. Although the Constitution is globally recognized as a written text, it consists also of unwritten rules and principles that are just as important, such as precedents, customs, traditions, norms, presuppositions, and more. These, too, have been amended, but how does that process work? In this book, leading scholars of law, history, philosophy, and political science consider the many theoretical, conceptual, and practical dimensions of what it means to amend America's 'unwritten Constitution': how to change the rules, who may legitimately do it, why leaders may find it politically expedient to enact written instead of unwritten amendments, and whether anything is lost by changing the constitution without a codified constitutional amendment.
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This is the first volume of The Max Planck Handbooks of European Public Law. Volume I: The Administrative State frames the administrative regimes of Europe in a comparative perspective, analysing the evolution of state and administration of major European jurisdictions, and examining issues that cut across national boundaries.