The Permeability of Constitutional Borders

Ultimately, the goal of constitutional theory is to attain understanding of what it means to be governed by something called a constitution. But the variability in what that something is cannot help but strike even the most casual observer. The differences on display-in text, but more importantly in practice-are mainly attributable to the diversity of social and political life around the world. A sensible reaction to this diversity is to counsel caution in the assimilation of foreign materials into the indigenous constitutional matrix of one's country. The widely held assumption that a constitution is rooted in the way of life of a given society creates an understandable predisposition to resist the temptations of legal transplantation.