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64 Stan. L. Rev. 907 (2012)
Constitutional Design in the Ancient World

handle is hein.journals/stflr64 and id is 917 raw text is: CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN IN THE ANCIENT WORLD Adriaan Lanni* & Adrian Vermeule** This paper identifies two distinctive features of ancient constitutional design that have largely disappeared from the modern world: constitution-making by single individuals and constitution-making by foreigners. We consider the virtues and vices of these features, and argue that under plausible conditions single founders and outsider founders offer advantages over constitution-making by representative bodies of citizens, even in the modern world. We also discuss the implications of adding single founders and outsider founders to the constitutional toolkit by describing how constitutional legitimacy would work, and how consti- tutional interpretation would be conducted, under constitutions that display either or both of the distinctive features of ancient constitutional design. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................908 I. HISTORY...........................................................................................................911 A. The Greek Lawgivers .................................................................................914 B. Distinctive Features of Ancient Constitutional Design ..............................918 II. VIRTUES AND VICES OF ANCIENT CONSTITUTION-MAKING .............................919 A. Single Founders..........................................................................................920 1. Virtues .................................................................................................920 a. Coherence and workability............................................................920 b. Accountability................................................................................923 c. Speed: opportunity costs and decision costs..................................924 2. Vices....................................................................................................925 a. Selection and variance...................................................................926 b. Representation: political and epistemic ........................................927 c. Political representation .................................................................927 d. Epistemic representation ...............................................................929 B. Outsiders as Founders ...............................................................................932 * Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. ** John H. Watson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. For helpful comments and discussions, thanks to Jon Elster, David Estlund, Tom Ginsburg, Vicki Jackson, Daryl Levinson, Mark Tushnet, participants in the Harvard Law School junior faculty discussion group, and participants in a conference at the College de France and a Harvard Law School faculty workshop. Thanks to Janet Kim and Jia Ryu for helpful research assistance, and to Kaitlin Burroughs for help with editing. 907

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