The Story of Constitutions: Discovering the We in Us

Wim Voermans

Leiden University

About the book:

Today, 189 out of 193 officially recognised nation-states have a written constitution, and 75% of these have been ratified since 1975. How did this worldwide diffusion of constitutions come about? In this book, Wim Voermans traces the varied and surprising story of constitutions since the agricultural revolution of c.10,000 B.C. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Voermans shows how human evolution, human nature and the history of thought have all played their part in shaping modern constitutions. Constitutions, in turn, have shaped our societies, creating imagined communities of trust and recognition that allow us to successfully co-operate with one another. Engagingly and wittily told, the story of constitutions is vital to understanding our world, our civilisations and, most significantly, ourselves.

What inspired you to take up this project?

I do not recall exactly when I distilled the plan for this enterprise, but it must have been a long time ago. For quite some time, I, as a seasoned professional constitutional lawyer, had had the feeling that something was not quite right – something in my field of study kept eluding me; things just did not add up. How do constitutions actually work, where do they come from and why are there so many nowadays? An uneasy – even unsettling – feeling, because confronting your ignorance is quite uncomfortable if you have, like me, been working in academia for more than 30 years.

Law is ubiquitous – there are contracts, governments, sanctions, constitutions and we behave as though it is the most natural thing in the world. But where does it all come from? During my studies, my professors gave a raft of explanations reminiscent of church sermons. Judging from their lectures and talks it seemed history apparently had a design for humanity and – as we became wiser and more civilised over the course of the ages – we had increased our understanding of how to organise and behave ourselves. Law, democracy and constitutions were all products of a linear history (of ideas and civilisation) that had brought us now to the zenith of human development. Study and better understanding might even bring us further. This mantra was repeated time and again, until after several years I, too, started to half believe it. Were it not that as a student I happened to mix mostly with economists and students of literature, sociology, and history. They had pertinent questions about these explanations of legal phenomena. However hard I tried, I could not begin giving them an answer as to why it was good to have a constitution or a legal system; why nearly the whole world had these institutions; what the economic, political or social consequences of constitutional systems were; whether it mattered which kind of systems were in place, and so on. Fundamental, academic questions to which my discipline, constitutional law, seemed shy of an answer. What kind of academic discipline is unable to answer such simple questions, and does not seem to be interested in them?

I later found solace with professional academic lawyers. They convinced me that it was all due to the ignominious underestimation of our discipline. The academic world has great difficulty understanding the true contribution of legal scholars and the significant and venerable interest they represent; legal scholars have an affinity with the greater dimensions of many issues – justice, legal principles and the like; we legal scholars are in close contact with a very broad constellation of principles and values that underpin our way of life. Who would not like to think this of themselves?

After my studies, I felt like an ugly duckling being warmly welcomed into the ranks of these majestic judicial swans. But after years in their midst and a career in constitutional law, the simple fundamental questions came back to haunt me. Basic questions, like how did we end up in a world of constitutions, a world aspiring to be ruled by law? Where does this all come from; what consequences does this have?

A few years ago, I felt I finally needed to do something, whatever the risk or reputational damage. You cannot spend your entire life applying yourself in your academic comfort zone of safe research bets and innumerable meetings. Which is why I started writing this book a while ago, with not much more than a hunch and a title to go on. It was to become one of the most enjoyable projects I have ever embarked upon. Not so much because I found all the answers to the fundamental questions about constitutions – I might have found a few – but because I encountered other questions and insights, both novel and familiar.

189 out of the 193 countries in the world today have a written constitution. This near global coverage may not seem all that strange, until we realise that 87% percent of all these constitutions were drafted after 1950 and as many as 74% of them were only put into place after 1975. The worldwide proliferation of constitutions over the past decades is one of the most remarkable and understudied phenomena of our time. More people live under a constitution than under a roof; constitutions are more popular than Brad Pitt or pizza.

What has made countries adopt constitutions in droves, even countries that do not (intend to) live up to all of the lofty ideals and principles expressed in them? Why are modern constitutions resembling each other more and more? Where do all these constitutions come from and what is driving their convergence? Surprisingly, academic literature has paid scant attention to this.

This book The Story of Constitutions: Discovering the We in Us investigates these questions from various perspectives (history, philosophy, the cognitive sciences, literature, sociology, law and economics) in – I believe – an innovative way. The book tries to solve the puzzle of how it came to pass that constitutions seem to have all but become the philosopher’s stone of political legitimacy over the last century. 

In the search for an answer, the book does not merely focus on (constitutional) law, legal doctrines or legal philosophy or theory, but adopts different angles, approaches and different lenses. The study does not satisfy itself with drawing from traditional legal doctrines, (case)law or legal theory but looks farther afield to find the root cause of the popularity of constitutions: human nature. Large-scale human cooperation requires trust and recognition in ways that supersede our neurological limits. During our evolution, humankind developed artificial trust- and recognition institutions – stories – to forge and coordinate human mass-cooperation. Constitutions try to create communities out of groups of what would otherwise be virtual strangers by promoting trust and recognition via basic norms of leadership and law. Basically, constitutions are tales about leadership and laws, that govern our group life. A constitution is a story of ‘we’ and who ‘we’ want to be, a story of belonging and the place of each member of the group (recognition). Not merely some story, but arguably one of the biggest stories of modern humankind.

Whose work was influential on you throughout the project?

Many books and authors have been influential for the book, but mostly non-legal authors and especially those authors who look at constitutions from the outside in like economists, sociologists, political scientists, historians and especially scholars working in the field of linguistics and narratology. Francis Fukuyama, Steven Pinker and Walter Fisher, for instance, feature prominently in the book and were inspirational. As were Jon Elster, Tom Ginsburg, Kim Lane Scheppele, Jonathan Gottschall and many more.

What challenges did you face in writing the book?

The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, and therefore I had to become a sort of a Jack of all trades. Even though this was challenging, it was very rewarding as well. The journey led me through a plethora of wonderful books, articles and various novel academic insights. After the project I can safely say that multidisciplinarity is the way forward in constitutional law; there is so much we can learn from other disciplines (and vice versa). It sometimes felt like joining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

What do you hope to see as the book’s contribution to academic discourse and constitutional or public law more broadly?

The book tries to address the big questions in constitutional law. Where do constitutions come from and what is it that constitutions actually do? The book tries to answer the question of the modern appeal of constitutions and how they lay the foundations for the imagined realities of leadership and legal systems. I hope that the somewhat provocative central thesis of the book, that constitutions work like an enticing story: a story that can forge close cooperation in a society of – essentially – strangers, will be discussed and the evidence I have tried to give will be – benignly – weighed. I hope the book can add to academic constitutional literature and that the multidisciplinary approach may be beneficial for other scholars in the field. But foremost I do hope the book will find its way to a broad readership of not only constitutional scholars and students, but also a wider and more varied audience. I have written the book in a way and in a style to give laymen (non-lawyers) access to its contents as well.

What’s next?

This year my ‘Dutch’ book was published, titled ‘Onze constitutie’ (Our Constitution) on the history, content and meaning of the Dutch Constitution. The book tries to open up the Dutch Constitution to a wide public of lawyers and laymen alike. I have made it my business to write the book in a style that allows everyone to understand the genesis and the subject matter of the Dutch Constitution, which is, in effect, of course a project of all Dutchmen and women past and present. Even though it was quite voluminous (nearly 1000 pages), it was favourably reviewed by both the general press and legal scholars. The book won a prize for best political book in the Netherlands of 2023 and is going up for its third reprint.

My next book project is not a legal book per se. It is a book on ‘Active memory’: how do we remember events, and how do we feel we should remember them? It is due to be published in 2025. Another book in the lineup is on Political Timing. Time is one of the most valued resources in politics. How do politicians use time in their strategies and planning. And how can you best use time to your advantage? Do you need special skills for that, personal traits or characteristics?

Wim Voermans is Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University.

For more information, and to purchase the book, see here.