"Constitutional Promises" and Repressive Reality: A Cross-National Time- Series Investigation of Why Political and Civil Liberties are Suppressed

I investigate whether or not national constitutions provide any insight into when states use political repression. Specifically, three constitutional provisions are identified: (1) what political and civil rights are mentioned explicitly, (2) what emergency powers are mentioned, and (3) what restrictions are placed on these two factors. I then examine how each of these provisions affect the use of censorship and political restrictions on 39 countries from 1948 to 1982, with a pooled cross-sectional time-series design (N = 1,365). This encompasses 73 constitutions in total.