Abstract: By now, nine out of ten countries have included emergency provisions into their constitutions. These provisions remain poorly understood. This paper therefore aims at providing first answers to three questions: 1) which particular provisions are most often included in emergency constitutions; 2) how much additional discretionary power do emergency constitutions allow and which political actors are given the additional power; and 3) which political and economic factors cause the inclusion of particular emergency provisions into constitutions. We discuss three theoretical motives possibly leading to the creation of such provisions, namely (1) a pragmatic, (2) a power-maximizing and (3) a commitment motive. We test our theoretical conjectures and find that emergency constitutions in countries with stronger veto institutions, higher average income, and which recently experienced a coup allow more discretionary power while countries that are prone to natural disasters and countries far from the equator allow less power. Our findings are mostly in line with theoretical options 2) and 3).

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