Our upcoming conference “Books & BBQ” will combine two of my favorite things. Authors in law and political science are invited to present their books, publishers are invited to display their collection, and readers are invited to enjoy the fun. We will also award the Book-of-the-Year Prize. Plus, of course, Austin's best BBQ for everyone. Join us on May 16-18, 2024!

For the 6th year in a row, more countries are declining than improving on key democratic indicators. This is the troubling trend revealed in The Global State of Democracy 2023. Fortunately, there is some good news in the world, namely more popular participation, less corruption, and the emergence of “countervailing institutions,” a reference to fourth-branch entities that can help protect and reinforce democracy.

The 7th Annual Global Review of Constitutional Law is now published in open access. The Global Review is an international collaboration among teams of scholars and judges who explain and contextualize high court rulings over the past year in over 70 countries. Thank you to our contributors and partners, including the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin, Università degli Studi di Trieste, EUT Edizioni, and my co-editors David Landau, Pietro Faraguna, and Giulia Andrade. 

Last week, over 150 scholars from Bangladesh and beyond gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the Constitution of Bangladesh--and to launch a new book on the Constitution. Edited by Rafqul Islam and Muhammad Ekramul Haque, The Constitutional Law of Bangladesh: Progression and Transformation at its 50th Anniversary is a rich blend of law, history, politics and theory, bringing together over 20 scholars to introduce the Constitution of Bangladesh to the world. The book is available to all in open access.

The complex constitutional politics of elections in Africa are the subject of a new book on Electoral Politics, Laws and Ethnicity in Africa. Available in open access, this book is an excellent study of the peculiar dynamics of elections in a part of the world about which we know much too little.

The Indonesian translation of my writings on constitutional reform are now published as Paradigma Baru Amendemen Konstitusi, which means "A New Paradigm for Constitutional Amendments." The cover photo shows the various stages of metamorphosis, representing the many ways a constitution changes over time. My sincere thanks to Rosa Ristawati, Radian Salman, Oemar Moechthar, and to Setara Press for this opportunity.

The students in my course on “Constitutional Amendments in the U.S. and the World” were treated to a visit from Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro, Vice President of the Constitutional Court of Portugal. We discussed the role of courts in constitutional reform, the functions and limits of unamendable rules, the relative merits of originalism and living constitutionalism, and his outstanding paper on “What is Constitutional Interpretation?” After our lively class conversation, we introduced Justice Almeida Ribeiro to Texas BBQ!