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This paper analyzes constitutional design as it pertains to the powers, composition, selection procedures, and duration of the mandate of supreme courts and constitutional tribunals in 17 Latin American countries between 1900 and 2009. The analysis is based on an original database that contains the text of all constitutional articles in the central organs of the judiciary. The paper relies on this information to demonstrate to what degree the job stability of magistrates can be explained in terms of the institutional conditions that regulate the judicial system. Our analysis emphasizes that the survival of magistrates is determined by the stability of the constitutional framework, rather than any specific legal content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the constitution of the area of studies on the history and development of political science in Latin America over the past ten years. Several studies have been proposed to account for this process showing the growth of the discipline in the region. In this paper we will highlight the main actors and their scientific and academic production, as well as the processes of institutionalization and professionalization of political science. This article aims to classify these studies from the early exploratory approaches up to the production of more sofisticated descriptive works, from a comparative perspective, in order to finally arrive at the new current trends that attempt to perform a “metatheoretical" approach with contributions from epistemology, sociology of knowledge and the history of the science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutionalism is not a Latin American creation, but rather a European and American import. Its implantation throughout these region has been particularly difficult, as shown by the fact that in two centuries of independence, they produced over 200 constitutional texts. This paper gives an analysis of some historical causes of this constitutional instability in Latin America. It also shows how constitutionalism has brought about a number of significant results In the region nonetheless, despite the divorce which often exists between the real and the apparent constitution, and the general lack of confidence in Constitutions. A particular importance is ascribed to Constitutional Litigation Law, whose institutions are in force and are respected in countries where the social legitimacy of Constitutions is rather slight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]