The Politics of Constitutional Rigidity

This book explores the non-institutional factors affecting constitutional amendments. It proposes a new framework for understanding change, highlighting how political parties, systems, culture, and key actors' decisions shape political entrenchment.

Mariana Velasco-Rivera is an Assistant Professor in Law at Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology, Ireland. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. She received her doctoral degree (Doctor of Juridical Science-JSD) and her master's degree (LLM) from Yale Law School. She also holds a law degree (Licenciatura en Derecho) from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Before joining Maynooth University, Dr Velasco-Rivera was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism held by Professor Ran Hirschl at the University of Göttingen, Germany and an Emile Noël Fellow at New York University, School of Law . Before her graduate studies, Mariana clerked for judge José Ramón Cossío Díaz at the Supreme Court of Mexico.