Constitutional drafters often look to foreign constitutional models, ideas, and texts for inspiration; many are explicit about their foreign borrowing. However, when implemented domestically, the meaning of borrowed elements often changes. Political scientists and scholars of comparative constitutional law have analyzed the transnational movement of constitutional ideas and norms, but the political processes through which the meaning of foreign provisions might be refashioned remain understudied. Sociolegal scholars have examined the “transplantation” and “translation” of laws and legal institutions, but they rarely scrutinize this process in the context of constitutions. Drawing on an examination of borrowed constitutional elements in four cases (Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Israel), this article builds on research in comparative politics, comparative constitutional law, and sociolegal studies to provide a nuanced picture of deliberate efforts to import “inclusive” constitutional provisions regarding religion-state relations while, at the same time, refashioning the meaning of those provisions in ways that “exclude” specific forms of religious, sectarian, doctrinal, or ideological diversity. Building on sociolegal studies regarding the translation of law, we argue that foreign constitutional elements embraced by politically embedded actors are often treated as “empty signifiers” with meanings that are deliberately transformed. Tracing the processes that lead political actors to engage foreign constitutional elements, even if they have no intention of transplanting their prior meaning, we highlight the need for detailed case studies to reveal both the international and the national dynamics that shape and reshape the meaning of constitutions today.

中文翻译：

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从外文到本土意义：跨国宪法借用中的宗教排斥政治

宪法起草者经常从外国宪法模式、思想和文本中寻找灵感。许多人明确表示他们的外国借款。但是，在国内实施时，借用元素的含义往往会发生变化。政治学家和比较宪法学学者分析了宪法思想和规范的跨国运动，但对外国条款的含义可能被重新塑造的政治过程仍然缺乏研究。社会法学学者研究了法律和法律制度的“移植”和“翻译”，但他们很少在宪法的背景下审视这一过程。本文通过对四个案例（巴基斯坦、摩洛哥、埃及、以色列）中借用的宪法要素的考察，建立在比较政治研究的基础上，比较宪法和社会法律研究，以提供一个细致入微的画面，即刻意努力引入有关宗教与国家关系的“包容性”宪法条款，同时以“排除”特定形式的宗教信仰的方式重塑这些条款的含义、宗派、教义或意识形态的多样性。基于有关法律翻译的社会法学研究，我们认为政治嵌入的行为者所接受的外国宪法要素通常被视为“空洞的能指”，其含义被刻意改变。追踪导致政治行为者参与外国宪法要素的过程，即使他们无意移植其先前的含义，