The Center
Our Work
The Center for Constitutional Democracy in Plural Societies (CCDPS) at
Indiana University studies and promotes constitutional democracy in
countries marked by ethnic, religious, linguistic, and other divisions.
Founded and directed by John S. Hastings Professor of Law David Williams,
the CCDPS will focus its initial work in Burma, Liberia, Kazakhstan, and
Azerbaijan, training the reform leaders of these countries in constitutionalism,
parliamentary process, and legal ordering. The center focuses its efforts on
the constitutional aspects of democratic reform, enabling plural societies
to peaceably provide meaningful self-governance to all their citizens. No
issue is more significant to the well-being of the world's peoples.
Our Approach
To promote constitutional democracy, the CCDPS bridges the world of ideas
and the world of affairs. The center brings together leaders of reform
movements in countries struggling for constitutional democracy and university
scholars who have expertise useful to those reformers. The center has a
scholarship function (holding conferences and producing books, transcripts,
articles, etc.) as well as an outreach function (training, advising, and
consulting with leaders of democratic reform). In short, the center seeks
to put the power of ideas to work in the world. It is committed both to
understanding constitutionalism as an academic concept and to going out
beyond the university to cities, jungles, mountains, and deserts where
people are trying to make a better future.
Our Team
Indiana University and the
Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington have close relationships with democratic leaders
in Burma and Liberia, as well as ongoing contact with reform leaders in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Law is especially relevant to democratic reform, but many other disciplines
are also central to the center's work, as the successful inclusion of
identity groups within a society's constitutional vision requires expertise
in economics, political science, public management, labor relations,
international affairs, and other disciplines. The center therefore has roots
in the School of Law, but has gathered an interdisciplinary team of scholars
from law, the IU Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, other IU
departments, and universities abroad. With its institutional independence,
rich intellectual resources, and extensive area programs, Indiana University
offers an especially good home for such work.