Economics of Compliance with Constitutions (ECC)

Since February 2018, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Science Center Poland (NCN) have funded a three-year research project at the Universities of Hamburg and Warsaw with more than 450,000 euros from the Beethoven 2 funding initiative.

The joint research project aims to investigate the causes and consequences of the different binding effects of national constitutions. While countries such as Denmark or Norway follow the rules laid out in their constitutions down to the last detail, studies have shown that other countries such as Pakistan, Russia or Zimbabwe implement only a few of the promises made in their constitutions. The size of these so-called "de jure de facto gaps" varies widely around the world, yet little is known about them.

The project in Hamburg is led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Voigt. Dr. Jerg Gutmann and Xiaoge Dong also work on the project at the ILE. The Polish research group is headed by Dr. Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska.