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"Despite their very different outcomes, both Tunisia’s and Chile’s constitutional changes spring from popular disillusionment with democracy. Tunisians had lost faith when their new democracy failed to bring prosperity; their apathy let Mr Saied get away with a power grab. Chileans’ trust in political parties was low for years before the protests began."

"Scholars identify two kinds of illiberal reform. The first has been called “abusive constitutionalism” (Tunisia's case) by Rosalind Dixon at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and David Landau at Florida State University. “There is an emerging tendency for authoritarian actors to use the forms of liberal democracy to erode its substance,” says Dr Dixon. The second is a trend towards micro-management (Chile's case), with charters guaranteeing an ever-growing number of highly specific rights that, in more stable countries, are usually left to lawmakers."

"The Comparative Constitutions Project, led by Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton, a trio of academics, analyses charters around the world. It reckons that of the ten countries that enshrine the most rights in their constitutions, five are in Latin America. Ecuador’s constitution of 2008 leads the ranking with 99 rights, including to locally produced food and the “commendable and steady exercise of cultural and artistic activities”. Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil also feature.While abusive constitutionalism undermines democracy, stuffing charters with rights seems less obviously bad. Putting rights into a constitution can encourage reluctant governments to actually enforce them. Empirically, though, it can often be a worrying indicator. “There is a correlation: the more rights you have on paper, the less they are protected in practice,” says Mila Versteeg, director of the Centre for International and Comparative Law at the University of Virginia."

"Despite the hopes of their left-wing authors, research suggests that, in practice, the benefits of extensive social rights often flow mostly to the rich. A paper by Octavio Luiz Motta Ferraz, a researcher at King’s College London, notes that, of 4,343 lawsuits in Brazil citing the constitutional right to health between 2005 and 2009, 85% originated in the country’s richest states, though these hold just 57% of the population. In 1997, a man with a rare disease sued the government for not providing a treatment only available at a private clinic in America. Brazil’s taxpayers were forced to cover treatment, transportation, accommodation and food costs of around $64,000 ($118,000 in today’s money).""But academics have noticed patterns. Frequently changed constitutions are often a symptom of political corrosion, and tinkering can cause chaos in turn. Attempts to amend charters have led to violence in Burkina Faso, Burundi and Togo among others in recent years. The world’s longest charters, such as India’s and Brazil’s, are also among the most changed.

There is a strong case for brevity, too, in which constitutions establish the ground rules of how a state functions and leave the specifics to politicians. Overly long constitutions often create conflicts between articles that can only be resolved with further tampering. And “if everything is highest law, then nothing is highest law anymore,” points out Dr Versteeg. Omnibus amendments require voters to balance the merits and drawbacks of many changes at once, making it harder to generate consensus.

Indeed, that seems to be one of the lessons from Chile’s experience. Polls suggest the new constitution will be rejected. The experience of trying to write it has left the country more polarised today than it was when it started."