In which country, the concept of Modern Constitutionalism was started ?

Question

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Correct — option (1), America. Modern constitutionalism — the idea of a single, written, supreme document that both establishes a government and limits its powers by law — is conventionally traced to the United States. The Constitution of the United States, drafted at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 and in effect from 1789, was the first instance of a people deliberately writing down, in one comprehensive text, the structure of their government and the limits on its authority, and then treating that text as supreme law binding on the government itself. That is what distinguishes 'modern' constitutionalism from older constitutional traditions: England had centuries of constitutional development before 1787 — Magna Carta in 1215, the Petition of Right in 1628, the Bill of Rights in 1689 — but England's constitution is unwritten and uncodified, built up piecemeal from statutes, conventions and judicial decisions rather than adopted as a single supreme text at one moment. The American innovation of a written, supreme, single-document constitution is what other countries then followed — France's own revolutionary constitutions began appearing from 1791, just a few years after the American example, and the practice of nations founding their government by writing a constitution spread from there. That is why the concept of modern constitutionalism, as distinct from constitutional government in the older, general sense, is dated to America.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) England has the oldest continuous constitutional tradition in the world — Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), the Bill of Rights (1689) — and it is the natural first guess for anyone thinking of 'constitutional government' in general. But England's constitution is unwritten: it has never been consolidated into a single supreme text. Modern constitutionalism specifically means a written, codified, supreme constitution, and that innovation belongs to America, not to the country whose older constitutional practice inspired it.  (c) France did produce early written constitutions, beginning in 1791, and the French Revolution is central to the spread of constitutionalism in Europe. But France followed the American example rather than originating it — the U.S. Constitution of 1787 came first, and French constitution-making in the revolutionary period is generally read as adopting and adapting the same idea a few years later.  (d) India's own Constitution, adopted in 1949 and in force from 26 January 1950, is a major twentieth-century instance of modern constitutionalism, drawing on the American, British, Irish, Canadian and other constitutional models among many sources. It is a product of the tradition this question asks about, coming more than a century and a half after the American Constitution, not the tradition's point of origin.

Concept: Constitutionalism, broadly, is the idea that government power should be limited and exercised according to established rules rather than at the ruler's discretion — a very old idea, present in England from Magna Carta onward. Modern constitutionalism narrows that general idea to a specific technique: a single written document, adopted as the supreme law of the land, that both creates the organs of government and limits what they may do. The United States Constitution of 1787 is the founding instance of that technique, and it is why the American example is treated as the start of modern constitutionalism even though England's constitutional practice is centuries older.

State PCS 2025 Q84 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q84 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer