Abstract

This article analyzes the transcripts of constitutional deliberations in two settings of third-wave democratization, Brazil and Ukraine. The focus is on the extent and kind of references to foreign countries and political institutions. Such references are relevant to the micro-foundations of theories of institutional diffusion. The evidence suggests that foreign references in constitutional debate are as frequent as are references to core concepts such as “democracy” and “freedom”. Also, actors employ foreign references mostly in order to attempt analytic comparisons across institutional models. These references mostly take the form of “endorsements” of the speaker’s favored policy, but a full third of them are negative examples (“warnings”), which lends credence to arguments about “aversive” diffusion mechanisms. Finally, the identity of countries referenced by Brazilian and Ukrainian constitution makers is analyzed. The ordering and profile of these target countries is remarkably similar despite differences in the cultural and geographic character of the two countries. Actors in both countries focused their attention on a small set of countries in the democratic “core”.

摘要

本文分析了巴西和乌克兰这两个第三波民主化背景下的宪法审议记录。重点在于提及外国和政治机构的程度和种类。这些参考文献与制度扩散理论的微观基础相关。证据表明，在宪法辩论中提及外国与提及“民主”和“自由”等核心概念一样频繁。此外，参与者主要采用外国参考资料来尝试跨机构模型进行分析比较。这些参考资料大多采取说话者偏爱政策的“背书”形式，但其中整整三分之一是反面例子（“警告”），这为关于“厌恶”扩散机制的争论提供了可信度。最后，分析了巴西和乌克兰宪法制定者所参考的国家身份。尽管两国的文化和地理特征不同，但这些目标国家的排序和概况非常相似。两国的行动者都将注意力集中在民主“核心”的一小部分国家。