Pacification and Constitutionalism: Formal Constitutions as Civil Peace Agreements

The spread of formal constitutions during the last two and a half centuries worldwide is closely associated with the fact that armed conflict between (national) states has receded and that within each state, or at least in many of them, socioeconomic and cultural dynamics more conducive (in comparison to pre-modern times) to a peaceful resolution of political disputes have emerged. Vice versa, constitutions typically aim to contribute to a further internal pacification of a given human society and their ultimate measure of success is the degree of their contribution towards that end. A formal constitution is a sort of a civil peace (in contrast to civil war) agreement between the various political forces or groups of a given human society, insofar as its drafting procedure was inclusive or, alternatively, as far as those forces have ex post facto accepted the constitutionally foreseen roadmap for political decision-making. Thus, pacification and constitutionalism are positively correlated and there is a partial mutual causation linking them.