> The encyclopedia says New Zealand doesn't even have a constitution. Wouldn't that make politics more disorderly and capricious than it already is? How do you tell at any given time that your government won't be radically different tomorrow?

The same way you do *with* a constitution - by loosely trusting that a majority of the government, at any given time, has some vague sense of right and wrong, and recognises the existing laws, and knows perfectly well that it will lose public support if it tries anything too stupid or outrageous.

What gave rise to the USA's need for a written constitution? Was it the act of breaking away from England and forming a new system? New Zealand didn't have to fight for independence, and we weren't trying to set down ways in which we were going to do things differently. Neither was this country settled largely by people trying to escape persecution of various sorts elsewhere. That might have a lot to do with it. Maybe this is a stupid idea, I don't know a lot about political history.

What about other countries? Is having a written constitution the norm? I've never heard of anywhere but the USA which fixates so much on having a written constitution.

I'm afraid I've never been very interested in the finer details of how our government works...*guilt*... I just vote and figure it somehow all works out OK. I suspect I'm about to discover a need to learn more, though. Leaping into serious forum debates with an ill-thought-out answer usually ends up being educational. ;-)

Brunnen-"probably should have done more research on this before posting"G