The growth of constitutional democracy has been a remarkable feature of the last 30 years, but during the last decade it has suffered a dramatic decline. That decline is marked less by constitutional democracies being overthrown than by an increase in regimes that retain the formal institutional trappings while flouting the norms and values on which constitutional democracies are based. This process of constitutional degradation is the subject of two recent books that together present the most comprehensive evaluation available on the current state of constitutional democracy. In this review article, the findings and analysis presented in Graber, Levinson and Tushnet’s Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? and Ginsburg and Huq’s How to Save a Constitutional Democracy are examined and appraised. The article argues that solutions to the contemporary crisis cannot be found only by strengthening liberal institutions; to survive, constitutional democracy must also seek to reinvigorate its democratic aspirations.

中文翻译：

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宪政民主的当代危机†

宪政民主的发展是过去 30 年的一个显着特征，但在过去十年中却急剧下降。这种衰落的标志不是宪政民主被推翻，而是政权的增加，这些政权保留了正式的制度特征，同时蔑视宪政民主所依据的规范和价值观。这种宪政退化的过程是最近两本书的主题，它们共同提供了对宪政民主现状的最全面评估。在这篇评论文章中，Graber、Levinson 和 Tushnet 的《危机中的宪政民主？金斯伯格和胡克的《如何拯救立宪民主》受到审查和评价。文章认为，不能仅通过加强自由制度来解决当代危机；为了生存，宪政民主还必须寻求重振其民主愿望。