World Constitution Metrics Dataset

Columns

• Country: The name of the nation to which the constitution belongs [2].
• Year Enacted: The specific year when the constitution was formally enacted [2].
• Scope: An indicator measuring the percentage of 701 key topics from the CCP survey that are included in a given constitution [1]. This column captures specific CCP survey topics [2].
• Length (in Words): A simple count of the total number of words in the constitution, as measured by Microsoft Word [1, 2].
• Executive Power: An additive index, ranging from 0 to 7, that quantifies the presence or absence of seven significant aspects of executive lawmaking power. These aspects include the power to initiate legislation, issue decrees, initiate constitutional amendments, declare states of emergency, exercise veto power, challenge the constitutionality of legislation, and dissolve the legislature. The index score reflects the total count of these powers assigned to the national executive (e.g., president, prime minister, or the government as a whole) [1, 2].
• Legislative Power: An indicator that captures the formal degree of power assigned to the legislature by the constitution. This is calculated as the mean of 32 binary elements from a specific survey, with higher numbers indicating greater legislative authority [1, 2].
• Judicial Independence: An additive index, ranging from 0 to 6, that captures the constitutional presence or absence of six features considered to enhance judicial independence. These features include an explicit statement of judicial independence within the constitution, provisions for lifetime judicial appointments, requirements for appointments to the highest court to involve either a judicial council or at least two actors, limitations or prohibitions on judicial removal (e.g., requiring a supermajority legislative vote or proposal by the public/judicial council with approval from another political actor), removal explicitly limited to crimes or misconduct, and protection of judicial salaries from reduction [1, 3].
• Number of Rights: An index indicating the total count of 1172 different human rights that have been identified and analysed in national constitutions, as found in any particular constitution [1, 3].
• Preamble: The full textual content of the preamble of each nation's constitution [1, 3].

Distribution

Usage

• Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) to identify patterns and trends in constitutional design [1].
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Text Pre-Processing applications, particularly utilising the 'Preamble' text [1].
• Comparative studies in constitutional law and political science, enabling cross-national analysis of governance structures and power dynamics [1, 2].
• Research into the enactment and endurance of national constitutions [1].

Coverage

License

Who Can Use It

• Academics and researchers in law, political science, and social sciences for empirical studies on constitutional frameworks and governance.
• Data scientists and machine learning engineers working on text analysis, data modelling, or institutional feature extraction.
• Policy analysts interested in understanding and comparing global constitutional provisions and their implications.
• Students undertaking projects related to international law, political systems, or human rights.

Dataset Name Suggestions

• Global National Constitutions Data
• World Constitution Metrics Dataset
• Constitutional Governance Index
• International Constitutional Survey Data

Attributes