Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy PDF Download

Author: Brian Christopher Jones
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788971108
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy investigates the increasingly important subject of constitutional idolatry and its effects on democracy. Focussed around whether the UK should draft a single written constitution, it suggests that constitutions have been drastically and persistently over-sold throughout the years, and that their wider importance and effects are not nearly as significant as constitutional advocates maintain. Chapters analyse whether written constitutions can educate the citizenry, invigorate voter turnout, or deliver ‘We the People’ sovereignty.

Author: Brian C. Jones
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781788971096
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This thought-provoking book investigates the increasingly important subject of constitutional idolatry and its effects on democracy. Focussed around whether the UK should draft a single written constitution, it suggests that constitutions have been drastically and persistently over-sold throughout the years, and that their wider importance and effects are not nearly as significant as constitutional advocates maintain. Analysing a number of issues in relation to constitutional performance, including whether these documents can educate the citizenry, invigorate voter turnout, or deliver 'We the People' sovereignty, the author finds written constitutions consistently failing to meet expectations. This innovative book also examines how constitutional idolatry may frustrate and distort constitutional change, and can lead to strong forms of constitutional paternalism emerging within the state. Ultimately, the book argues that idolising written constitutions is a hollow endeavour that will fail to produce better democratic outcomes or help solve increasingly complicated societal problems.Engaging and accessible, Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy will be a key resource for both new and established scholars interested in comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, law and democracy and written vs. unwritten constitutions.

Author: Brian Christopher Jones
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781803924717
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This thought-provoking book investigates the increasingly important subject of constitutional idolatry and its effects on democracy. Focused around whether the UK should draft a single written constitution, it suggests that constitutions have been drastically and persistently over-sold throughout the years, and that their wider importance and effects are not nearly as significant as constitutional advocates maintain. Analysing a number of issues in relation to constitutional performance, including whether these documents can educate the citizenry, invigorate voter turnout, or deliver 'We the People' sovereignty, the author finds written constitutions consistently failing to meet expectations. This innovative book also examines how constitutional idolatry may frustrate and distort constitutional change, and can lead to strong forms of constitutional paternalism emerging within the state. Ultimately, the book argues that idolising written constitutions is a hollow endeavour that will fail to produce better democratic outcomes or help solve increasingly complicated societal problems. Engaging and accessible, Constitutional Idolatry and Democracywill be a key resource for both new and established scholars interested in comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, law and democracy and written vs. unwritten constitutions.

Author: Antoni Abat i Ninet
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074867537X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Western political systems tend to be 'constitutional democracies', dividing the system into a domain of politics, where the people rule, and a domain of law, set aside for a trained elite. Antoni Abat i Ninet strives to resolve these apparently exclusive

Author: David Orentlicher
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814789498
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
“Can Orentlicher be serious in calling for a plural executive? The answer is yes, and he presents thoughtful and challenging arguments responding to likely criticisms. Any readers who are other than completely complacent about the current state of American politics will have to admire Orentlicher’s distinctive audacity and to respond themselves to his well-argued points.” —Sanford Levinson, author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance “In this refreshingly provocative book, David Orentlicher explains why it is due time for us to reconsider dominant ideas about the presidency, now arguably our most powerful political institution.” —William E. Scheuerman, Indiana University When talking heads and political pundits make their “What’s Wrong with America” lists, two concerns invariably rise to the top: the growing presidential abuse of power and the toxic political atmosphere in Washington. In Two Presidents Are Better Than One, David Orentlicher shows how the “imperial presidency” and partisan conflict are largely the result of a deeper problem—the Constitution’s placement of a single president atop the executive branch. Accordingly, writes Orentlicher, we can fix our broken political system by replacing the one person, one-party presidency with a two-person, two-party executive branch. Orentlicher contends that our founding fathers did not anticipate the extent to which their checks and balances would fail to contain executive power and partisan discord. As the stakes in presidential elections have grown ever higher since the New Deal, battles to capture the White House have greatly exacerbated partisan differences. Had the framers been able to predict the future, Orentlicher argues, they would have been far less enamored with the idea of a single leader at the head of the executive branch and far more receptive to the alternative proposals for a plural executive that they rejected. Analyzing the histories of other countries with a plural executive branch and past examples of bipartisan cooperation within Congress, Orentlicher shows us why and how to implement a two-person, two-party presidency. Ultimately, Two Presidents Are Better Than One demonstrates why we need constitutional reform to rebalance power between the executive and legislative branches and contain partisan conflict in Washington. David Orentlicher is Samuel R. Rosen Professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. A scholar of constitutional law and a former state representative, David also has taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago Law School. He earned degrees in law and medicine at Harvard and specializes as well in health care law and ethics.

Author: J. M. Balkin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Political constitutions are compromises with injustice. What makes the U.S. Constitution legitimate is Americans’ faith that the constitutional system can be made “a more perfect union.” Balkin argues that the American constitutional project is based in hope and a narrative of shared redemption, and its destiny is still over the horizon.

Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400842840
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Michael Ignatieff draws on his extensive experience as a writer and commentator on world affairs to present a penetrating account of the successes, failures, and prospects of the human rights revolution. Since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this revolution has brought the world moral progress and broken the nation-state's monopoly on the conduct of international affairs. But it has also faced challenges. Ignatieff argues that human rights activists have rightly drawn criticism from Asia, the Islamic world, and within the West itself for being overambitious and unwilling to accept limits. It is now time, he writes, for activists to embrace a more modest agenda and to reestablish the balance between the rights of states and the rights of citizens. Ignatieff begins by examining the politics of human rights, assessing when it is appropriate to use the fact of human rights abuse to justify intervention in other countries. He then explores the ideas that underpin human rights, warning that human rights must not become an idolatry. In the spirit of Isaiah Berlin, he argues that human rights can command universal assent only if they are designed to protect and enhance the capacity of individuals to lead the lives they wish. By embracing this approach and recognizing that state sovereignty is the best guarantee against chaos, Ignatieff concludes, Western nations will have a better chance of extending the real progress of the past fifty years. Throughout, Ignatieff balances idealism with a sure sense of practical reality earned from his years of travel in zones of war and political turmoil around the globe. Based on the Tanner Lectures that Ignatieff delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2000, the book includes two chapters by Ignatieff, an introduction by Amy Gutmann, comments by four leading scholars--K. Anthony Appiah, David A. Hollinger, Thomas W. Laqueur, and Diane F. Orentlicher--and a response by Ignatieff.

Author: Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252889
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Few terms in political theory are as overused, and yet as under-theorized, as constitutional revolution. In this book, Gary Jacobsohn and Yaniv Roznai argue that the most widely accepted accounts of constitutional transformation, such as those found in the work of Hans Kelsen, Hannah Arendt, and Bruce Ackerman, fail adequately to explain radical change. For example, a “constitutional moment” may or may not accompany the onset of a constitutional revolution. The consolidation of revolutionary aspirations may take place over an extended period. The “moment” may have been under way for decades—or there may be no such moment at all. On the other hand, seemingly radical breaks in a constitutional regime actually may bring very little change in constitutional practice and identity. Constructing a clarifying lens for comprehending the many ways in which constitutional revolutions occur, the authors seek to capture the essence of what happens when constitutional paradigms change.

Author: Bas Leijssenaar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108483518
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Sovereignty, originally the figure of 'sovereign', then the state, today meets new challenges of globalization and privatization of power.

Author: Paul F. Campos
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822318415
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A fundamental critique of American law and legal thought, Against the Law consists of a series of essays written from three different perspectives that coalesce into a deep criticism of contemporary legal culture. Paul F. Campos, Pierre Schlag, and Steven D. Smith challenge the conventional representations of the legal system that are articulated and defended by American legal scholars. Unorthodox, irreverent, and provocative, Against the Law demonstrates that for many in the legal community, law has become a kind of substitute religion--an essentially idolatrous practice composed of systematic self-misrepresentation and self-deception. Linked by a persistent inquiry into the nature and identity of "the law," these essays are informed by the conviction that the conventional representations of law, both in law schools and the courts, cannot be taken at face value--that the law, as commonly conceived, makes no sense. The authors argue that the relentlessly normative prescriptions of American legal thinkers are frequently futile and, indeed, often pernicious. They also argue that the failure to recognize the role that authorship must play in the production of legal thought plagues both the teaching and the practice of American law. Ranging from the institutional to the psychological and metaphysical deficiencies of the American legal system, the depth of criticism offered by Against the Law is unprecedented. In a departure from the nearly universal legitimating and reformist tendencies of American legal thought, this book will be of interest not only to the legal academics under attack in the book, but also to sociologists, historians, and social theorists. More particularly, it will engage all the American lawyers who suspect that there is something very wrong with the nature and direction of their profession, law students who anticipate becoming part of that profession, and those readers concerned with the status of the American legal system.