statements of ideology rather than to regulate government operations. Including such countries would decrease the reliability of our results by increasing the noise. One option might have been to restrict the sample to democracies. We reject this approach for two reasons. First, there remains considerable debate as to the necessary conditions for a country to be accepted as a democracy. There are several competing measures, such as Polity and Freedom House, but the correlation between them is not perfect. Second, even amongst countries labeled as democracies, the extent to which the formal constitutional text constrains political actors varies significantly. Developing democracies have electoral institutions, but those institutions do not necessarily possess the authority or power to constrain political elites. This becomes even more problematic when or considering “quasi-democracies” “electoral authoritarianism.” By contrast, we believe that participation in the Organization for Economic and Development (OECD) is a more reliable indicator of constitutional governance. The OECD is a fairly exclusive organization and sets criteria for admissions. Members must commit to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, open market economy principles, and sustainable development. Because the OECD externally verifies that these conditions are met before admitting a country, we can be more confident that OECD member countries actually meet these minimum standards. As such, the constitutions of these countries are more likely govern and bind political activity, which should minimize the noise in our data. Finally, there is sufficient variation even within the OECD in terms of constitutional length to allow us to draw inferences. We should also explain our decision to focus on a cross-section rather than a time series analysis. Through the Comparative Constitutions Project, we have detailed
statements of ideology rather than to regulate government operations. Including such countries would decrease the reliability of our results by increasing the noise. One option might have been to restrict the sample to democracies. We reject this approach for two reasons. First, there remains considerable debate as to the necessary conditions for a country to be accepted as a democracy. There are several competing measures, such as Polity and Freedom House, but the correlation between them is not perfect. Second, even amongst countries labeled as democracies, the extent to which the formal constitutional text constrains political actors varies significantly. Developing democracies have electoral institutions, but those institutions do not necessarily possess the authority or power to constrain political elites. This becomes even more problematic when considering “quasi-democracies” or “electoral authoritarianism.” By contrast, we believe that participation in the Organization for Economic and Development (OECD) is a more reliable indicator of constitutional governance. The OECD is a fairly exclusive organization and sets criteria for admissions. Members must commit to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, open market economy principles, and sustainable development. Because the OECD externally verifies that these conditions are met before admitting a country, we can be more confident that OECD member countries actually meet these minimum standards. As such, the constitutions of these countries are more likely govern and bind political activity, which should minimize the noise in our data. Finally, there is sufficient variation even within the OECD in terms of constitutional length to allow us to draw inferences. We should also explain our decision to focus on a cross-section rather than a time series analysis. Through the Comparative Constitutions Project, we have detailed