Civil society and compliance with constitutions

Should we consider a civil society a relevant factor in the context of executive’s attitude toward a constitution? The essential goal of the study is to investigate the relationship between a strength of a country’s civil society on constitutional compliance of the executive. To do so, we use data for up to 179 countries from a 30-year period on civil society and compliance with constitutions from the V-Dem project. In a series of dynamic panel regressions, we find that civil society is positively associated with constitutional compliance. This evidence suggests that the validity of constitutional provisions in terms of lawfulness of the executive may be strengthened by civil society. The results of our study provide added value in better understanding the decisions of executives in the perspective of respect for the law. We relate our conclusions regarding ties between politics and the law to previous literature, covering the impact of institutional and social surroundings on the shape of politics.