Legal rules bind only when empowered constituencies have incentives to defend them

Evidence

Beyond these anecdotal observations, however, we know very little about the precise patterns of entrenchment that make some constitutional rules and rights more difficult to change than others. We also know very little about the mechanisms through which functional constitutional entrenchment comes about. We should expect, however, that these mechanisms will operate quite similarly in the constitutional and subconstitutional domains—by way of selectively empowering certain groups whose interests and incentives align with compliance and preservation. The overarching point is that, whatever the formal rules governing political and legal change, change will in fact always be possible and predictable whenever it serves the interests of powerful political actors. As James Madison famously put it, constitutional and other legal rules may create merely “parchment barriers” that can be ignored or overridden at will. As Madison also recognized, however, parchment prohibitions can be converted into meaningful constraints when the political process is arranged in such a way that political actors who support constitutional rules and rights have the power to defend them. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 471

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s core question about what makes rationalizing ideology durable once embedded in law — mechanism here is interest-aligned constituency empowerment, not rule content. — connects to: Legal rules become binding only when supporters hold enforcement power — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 471; Legal entrenchment always depends on political entrenchment of the rules — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 187; Entrenchment can be functional, via empowered constituencies, not only formal legal rules — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 370 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: If entrenchment mechanisms are alike across constitutional and subconstitutional domains, what distinguishes genuinely durable ideology from disposable rhetoric may not be formal legal status at all.

Broader Connections

• Legal rules become binding only when supporters hold enforcement power #expands (0.95) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 471
• Entrenchment can be functional, via empowered constituencies, not only formal legal rules #corroborates (0.90) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 370
• Legal entrenchment always depends on political entrenchment of the rules #expands (0.85) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 187