ABSTRACT
Constitutional reform, constitution-making, and constitution-mongering are high on the agenda not only in Latin America, but also in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, South, East and West Africa, the Islamic world, Hong Kong, and even the United Kingdom. The tension between these ideas is apparent in a puzzle about the current global debate. The terms of the debate seem to be widely shared:3 almost everywhere one goes one hears talk of democracy, constitutionalism, human rights, limited government, the rule of law, free elections, an independent judiciary, and even judicial review. The term "constitution" is often used merely to refer to a formal written text or set of texts or to such documents overlaid with a set of principles of interpretation, which are typically contested, and with a particularized set of interpretations embodied injudicial decisions, constitutional conventions, and official practice. Different conceptions of "constitution" should lead to correspondingly different conceptions of constitutional design and of constitution-mongering.
