---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 5:55 PM Subject: Constitute - Tool for Designing Constitutions To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> found via Seth https://www.constituteproject.org http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4761922/google-launches-constitute-a-new-t... The process of drafting a constitution is usually long, intricate and politically fraught — but with 160 different active constitutions to draw from, it's also uniquely amenable to data analysis. With that in mind, Google has partnered with the Comparative Constitutions Project to launch a new site called Constitute <https://www.constituteproject.org/>, devoted to comparing the world's constitutions. It examines nearly 350 constitutional themes, organized into topics like the duties of a citizen and the role of the executive. The result is a comprehensive view of how countries structure their governments, and a powerful tool for any would-be founders. As one co-founder put it, "If want to see what African constitutions have to say about the rights of women after 1945, you can do that in just a few clicks." "Our aim is to arm drafters with a better tool for constitution design and writing," Google said in a post accompanying the launch<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/explore-worlds-constitutions-with-new.html>. That's a niche audience, to put it mildly, but it's also an important one. In 2013 so far, Zimbabwe has already voted on a new constitution<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/world/africa/zimbabwe-votes-on-new-constitution.html>, and 2012 saw both Somalia and Syria adopt new founding documents, along with nearly half a dozen revisions from other countries. The hope is that, if Constitute can influence the next generation of constitutions and give citizens a greater sense of ownership over the documents, it could have a huge impact in years to come. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/