A few hot summer months later, the 38 delegates emerged with the U.S. Constitution. The first written national constitution, it was nothing short of radical, creating a blueprint for a new kind of government built on separated powers, checks and balances, and popular sovereignty. Yet even the Founding Fathers doubted its longevity. Thomas Jefferson insisted that every constitution should expire after 19 years so each generation could craft its own. And at the convention, George Washington cautioned, “I do not expect the Constitution to last for more than 20 years.”
Despite their projections, the U.S. Constitution has survived for more than two centuries, longer than any other written charter still in force. Over that time, it helped launch a global wave of constitution-writing, shaping democratic systems from Latin America to Asia. But today, even as its legacy remains undeniable, according to some scholars, the Constitution’s once-towering influence appears to be waning.
The Era of Constitutions
Once the U.S. Constitution was ratified, the notion of a single written constitution was — to borrow from the Revolutionary War idiom — heard ’round the world. In 1791, Poland adopted its first written constitution, followed later that year by France, which cycled through four constitutions in the 1790s alone. The idea spread to other newly independent European colonies as well: Haiti ratified its first constitution in 1805 following its own revolution.
In the 19th century, as the wave of constitution-making continued in full force, a few countries borrowed heavily from the United States’ founding document. Argentina’s 1853 constitution and Brazil’s 1891 constitution echoed the U.S. Constitution’s language, sometimes word for word, and closely replicated its institutional structure.
Today, written constitutions are nearly universal among democracies, thanks in large part to the example set by the United States. (The United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Israel are notable exceptions.)
Furthermore, the vast majority of countries today also have some form of judicial review, a principle once described by French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville as uniquely American. “I am unaware that any nation of the globe has hitherto organized a judicial power in the same manner as the Americans,” de Tocqueville wrote in 1835.
Constitutional Rights — or Lack Thereof
The Founding Fathers also pioneered the idea of a bill of rights, a set of amendments explicitly protecting individual freedoms under the law. In the centuries since, most nations have adopted similar guarantees. Yet in some ways, the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights remains distinctive.
As the U.S. Supreme Court moves toward a broader interpretation of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms now appears in only about 2% of the world’s written constitutions. At the same time, 165 countries enshrine stronger constitutional protections for women than does the United States, according to research from the UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center. And 142 countries provide some degree of constitutional protection for the right to health, a protection not addressed in the U.S. Constitution.
The United States’ Waning Constitutional Influence
Against this backdrop, some scholars now argue that the U.S. Constitution has fallen “out of sync” with a growing international consensus on human rights, making other nations less likely to use it as a model.
A 2012 University of Virginia study examined 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries between 1946 and 2006. The authors found that while global constitutions once closely mirrored the U.S. model — peaking in similarity during the 1980s — that influence has steadily declined, especially in the realm of individual rights and protections. During the 1990s, a decade marked by intense constitution-making and U.S. post–Cold War dominance on the world stage, average similarity to the U.S. Constitution nonetheless began to decline.
“The U.S. Constitution itself appears to have lost its attraction as a model for constitution-writers in other countries,” the study’s authors wrote. “The world’s constitutions have on average become less similar to the U.S. Constitution over the last 60 years.”
The authors view constitution-making as an evolutionary process, which helps explain why the U.S. model has drifted to the margins. The U.S. Constitution has endured for more than two centuries and has been amended only once in the past 50 years. Changing it is no simple task: any amendment requires ratification by three-fourths of the states. The average national constitution globally, by contrast, has a 38% chance of being revised in any given year and is replaced roughly every 19 years.
“Once global constitutionalism is understood as the product of a polycentric evolutionary process,” the study’s authors concluded, “it is not difficult to see why the U.S. Constitution is playing an increasingly peripheral role. No evolutionary process favors a species that is frozen in time.”
In these scholars’ view, the United States’ waning constitutional influence stems not from its courts or culture, but from the static character of the document itself.
Mia Penner (Trinity ’25.5) is a research assistant for the Bolch Judicial Institute’s Civics Program. She graduated from Duke University in December 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in public policy studies and minors in economics and journalism & media. In August, she will join Alvarez & Marsal’s Public Sector Services practice as an analyst, providing consulting support to governments, educational institutions, and nonprofits. During her gap semester, Mia is working at the Bolch Judicial Institute, conducting audience research for The Duke Chronicle, and serving coffee at Narrative Coffee Co. in downtown Durham.