RAPID: Constitutional Change and Public Support for Minority Rights

West Virginia University Research Corporation, Morgantown WV

Investigators

Abstract

The protection of minority rights is a hallmark of modern liberal democracy. To do so, democracies often rely on constitutional guarantees. Where such rights do not already exist, however, formally guaranteeing minority rights often requires carrying out constitutional change. Despite the political, social, and economic significance of amending a constitution, scholars have yet to fully evaluate whether constitutional change translates into changes in how citizens view minority rights and, relatedly, the views of minority citizens themselves. As a result, it remains both undertheorized and understudied whether attempts at constitutional change engender greater public acceptance of minority rights or, alternatively, instigate a backlash against them. Moreover, it is unclear how such efforts might strengthen – or undermine – minority citizens’ sense of political efficacy and support for the political system. The answers to these questions thus have important implications for the quality and stability of liberal democratic governance. The project engages with this limitation of existing work by examining the political impact of attempts at constitutional change with a comparative approach to data collection and research. To do so, the project leverages the unique conditions created by a referendum and its impact on support for an oft-overlooked form of minority rights, indigenous rights. The referendum asks citizens to either adopt or reject a constitutional amendment formally recognizing indigenous rights and creating an indigenous advisory body. Using a public opinion survey fielded in the period immediately preceding and following the referendum, the project will yield insights into (a) the impacts of the referendum on public support for minority rights; (b) the extent to which such an effect is conditioned by pre-existing support for minority rights; and (c) the impact of the referendum’s outcome on the political attitudes and efficacy of minority citizens. In doing so, the project represents a unique examination of a constitutional referendum’s impact on political attitudes and an important expansion of the existing literature on public support for minority rights in general and Indigenous rights in particular. Moreover, the findings from this research will yield insights into the consequences of attempts at constitutional change for minority citizens’ attachment and trust in the political system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.