What is a constitution? How are constitutions made? Why have some constitutions effectively structured the political lives of their respective countries and endured, while others have struggled to shape their dynamics of power, let alone survive? What roles do apex courts play in interpreting, amending and preserving distinct constitutional values? Does constitutionalism generally, and judicial review in particular, empower or constrain the prospects for democracy and justice? And why have these practices varied across countries over time? This course explores these questions in comparative, historical and theoretical perspective. The first part addresses basic conceptual questions: the meaning, purposes and ramifications of courts, law and constitutionalism. In part two of the course, we investigate how societies have variously established constitutions and why some endure while others fail to last. Part three considers the role, legitimacy and consequences of courts reading, changing and upholding constitutions and judging the constitutionality of legislation. Finally, in part four of the course we investigate where, how and why high judicial activism and popular constitutional mobilization have increasingly sought to enforce a positive socioeconomic conception of rights, inaugurating an era of new constitutionalism, and assess the ramifications of these recent trends.