ROGERS SMITH engages in a dialogue with political scientist GABRIEL NEGRETTO in the latest issue of Perspectives on Politics. They exchange reviews of each other's recent edited volumes on the creation and impact of national constitutions in the modern world. Modern Constitutions, which Smith co-edited with the late RICHARD R. BEEMAN, collects papers presented during the 2012-2013 Faculty Workshop Series, "Constitution Making." Reflecting their origins in a workshop series, the papers are theoretically and thematically diverse. The essays presented in Negretto's volume, Redrafting Constitutions in Democratic Regimes: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, are by contrast more tightly focused around a common conceptual framework. As Smith notes in his response to Negretto's review of Modern Constitutions, "both types of edited volumes can make significant, if distinct, contributions to studies of constitutionalism and to other topics as well. In fact, I venture to say that both the examples of these different types considered here have done so." Read the full Critical Dialogue here.

Rogers M. Smith is the Andrea Mitchell Center's founding Director and Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn.

Gabriel L. Negretto is a professor of political science at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), located in Mexico City.