Long constitutions are not garrulous, but they are restrictive

Following the Scottish independence ‘No’ vote, many have suggested that the only way to clear up the heightening degree of incoherence that characterises the UK’s constitutional settlement is to start afresh with a constitutional convention, given its final expression through a new written Constitution. George Tsebelis and Dominic J. Nardi, Jr show that any such a constitution should aim for brevity, given that longer constitutions are both more rigid, yet in practice more often altered, according to evidence from OECD countries.