Constitutional hardball consists of practices that are consistent with the formal requirements of constitutional democracy but that destabilize and potentially transform it. This Chapter examines why political actors engage in hardball, focusing first on their short-term political motivations and then turning to the function of constitutional hardball within reasonably well-functioning constitutional democracies. The Chapter ends with a discussion of what might be done to convert constitutional hardball into ordinary political maneuvering, conclude that such efforts are unlikely to succeed and might be inappropriate (though not illiberal) efforts to halt more or less ordinary transformations in political practices.