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Author: Alain Marciano
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441967842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
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Book Description
Our societies obviously rest on common beliefs. These "myths" are tools that help us to develop and build common identities; they form the structure around which societies function. This does not imply that these beliefs are “true,” in the sense that they would be supported by empirical facts. In social matters, myths have undoubtedly important functions to play even if no empirical facts support them. On the other hand, and precisely because they are not discussed, myths may be problematic: they may create illusions, conserve structures that are inefficient and unable to improve the situation of citizens. This is particularly true with constitutions. Constitutions are very important for societies: a constitution is a document — even in societies based on “unwritten” constitutions — which binds citizens together, creating unity among them, and which forms the framework within which our activities take place. As Nobel Prize laureate James Buchanan used to say: constitutions contain the rules of the social game we play in our everyday life. However, constitutions are not frequently debated by citizens. This is why we end up with common beliefs about these constitutions: they are above our heads, around us. We take them, their role, function, and nature as given. The purpose of this volume to investigate and challenge common constitutional myths. Featuring contributions from prominent economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, the chapters in this volume address such myths as “constitutions are binding social contracts,” “constitutions are economic documents” and “constitutions are legal documents.” Illustrating their analyses with historical and contemporary examples from the United States, Canada, and Europe, the authors build a multi-layered approach to understanding constitutions and their implications for social and political influence.
Author: Alain Marciano
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441967842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Get Book Here
Book Description
Our societies obviously rest on common beliefs. These "myths" are tools that help us to develop and build common identities; they form the structure around which societies function. This does not imply that these beliefs are “true,” in the sense that they would be supported by empirical facts. In social matters, myths have undoubtedly important functions to play even if no empirical facts support them. On the other hand, and precisely because they are not discussed, myths may be problematic: they may create illusions, conserve structures that are inefficient and unable to improve the situation of citizens. This is particularly true with constitutions. Constitutions are very important for societies: a constitution is a document — even in societies based on “unwritten” constitutions — which binds citizens together, creating unity among them, and which forms the framework within which our activities take place. As Nobel Prize laureate James Buchanan used to say: constitutions contain the rules of the social game we play in our everyday life. However, constitutions are not frequently debated by citizens. This is why we end up with common beliefs about these constitutions: they are above our heads, around us. We take them, their role, function, and nature as given. The purpose of this volume to investigate and challenge common constitutional myths. Featuring contributions from prominent economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, the chapters in this volume address such myths as “constitutions are binding social contracts,” “constitutions are economic documents” and “constitutions are legal documents.” Illustrating their analyses with historical and contemporary examples from the United States, Canada, and Europe, the authors build a multi-layered approach to understanding constitutions and their implications for social and political influence.
Author: Garrett Epps
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442216786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
The primary purpose of the United States Constitution is to limit Congress. There is no separation of church and state. The Second Amendment allows citizens to threaten the government. These are just a few of the myths about our constitution peddled by the Far Right—a toxic coalition of Fox News talking heads, radio hosts, angry “patriot” groups, and power-hungry Tea Party politicians. Well-funded, loud, and unscrupulous, they are trying to do to America’s founding document what they have done to global warming and evolution—wipe out the facts and substitute partisan myth. In the process, they seek to cripple the right of We the People to govern ourselves. In Wrong and Dangerous, legal scholar Garrett Epps provides the tools needed to fight back against the flood of constitutional nonsense. In terms every citizen can understand, he tackles ten of the most prevalent myths, providing a clear grasp of the Constitution and the government it established.
Author: Ray Raphael
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595588388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Americans of late have taken to waving the Constitution in the air and proclaiming, "The founders were on MY side! See, it's all right here!" But these phantom constitutions bear little relation to the historical one. By entering the world of the Constitution's framers, and experiencing it one day after the next as they did, Ray Raphael helps us understand how and why they created the document they did. Casting aside preconceptions and commonly held beliefs, he asks provocative questions that get to the heart of the document and its purposes: Was the aim of the Constitution really to limit government? Why didn't the framers include a Bill of Rights? Did they hate taxes? Was James Madison actually the "Father of the Constitution," as proclaimed in our textbooks? Can we find the true meaning of the Constitution by reading The Federalist Papers or by revealing the framers' "original intent"? The answers to these questions are bound to surprise and enlighten. Before we can consider what the framers would do if they were alive today, we first need to see what they did during their own time, not in our terms, but theirs. Only then can we begin to resolve the sweeping question that affects us all: what does the Constitution, written at a different time, mean for us today? With this meticulously researched historical tour de force, Raphael sets the record straight—and sounds a vital call for a reasoned and evidence-driven debate about our founding document.
Author: Martin Belov
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509931422
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
This book offers an outline of the foundations of a theory of constitutional semiotics. It provides a systematic account of the concept of constitutional semiotics and its role in the representation and signification of meaning in constitution, constitutional law, and constitutionalism. The book explores the constitutional signification of meaning that is stretched between rational entrenchment and constitutional imagination. It provides a critical assessment of the rationalist entrapment of constitutional modernity and justifies the need to turn to 'shadow constitutionalisms': textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism. The book puts forward innovative incentives for constitutional analysis based on constitutional semiotics as a paradigm for representation of meaning in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism. The book focuses on the textual, imaginative, and visual discourse of constitutionalism, which is built upon collective constitutional imaginaries and on the peculiar normativity of constitutional geometry and constitutional mythology as borderline phenomena entrenched in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism. The book analyses concepts such as: constitutional text and texture, authoritative constitutional narratives and authoritative constitutional narrators, constitutional semiotic community, constitutional utopia, constitutional taboo, normative ideology and normative ideas, constitutional myth and mythology, constitutional symbolism, constitutional code and constitutional geometric form. It explores the textual entrenchment of constitutionalism and its repercussions for representation and signification of meaning.
Author: E. M. Berens
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
"Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome " is a comprehensive mythology collection, presenting all the major and minor gods of Rome and Greece, with descriptions of festivals and retellings of major mythological stories. The author, thoroughly details each Greek and Roman god, goddess, hero, demi-god and creature and gives the reader a clear and succinct idea of the religious beliefs of the ancients. An exceptional book for those interested in Greek or Roman mythology.
Author: Игорь Барциц
Publisher: Litres
ISBN: 5041800715
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 62
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Book Description
This working paper provides insight into the essence, content and destiny of constitutional myths and illusions as «load-bearing elements» of constitutional order, government system and political regime. Special attention is paid to the analysis of individual constitutional myths and illusions, such as the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, concept of social contract, nation-wide referendum, values of separation of powers, open government, etc., as well as examples of their embodiment in the Constitutions of Russia, China, the USA, France, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine, etc.
Author: Brian C. Kalt
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300178018
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
The United States Constitution's provisions for selecting, replacing, and punishing presidents contain serious weaknesses that could lead to constitutional controversies. In this compelling and fascinating book, Brian Kalt envisions six such controversies, such as the criminal prosecution of a sitting president, a two-term president's attempt to stay in power, the ousting of an allegedly disabled president, and more. None of these things has ever occurred, but in recent years many of them almost have. Besides being individually dramatic, these controversies provide an opportunity to think about how constitutional procedures can best be designed, interpreted, and repaired. Also, because the events Kalt describes would all carry enormous political consequences, they shed light on the delicate and complicated balance between law and politics in American government.
Author: David F. Forte
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621573524
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 644
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Book Description
A landmark work of more than one hundred scholars, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is a unique line-by-line analysis explaining every clause of America's founding charter and its contemporary meaning. In this fully revised second edition, leading scholars in law, history, and public policy offer more than two hundred updated and incisive essays on every clause of the Constitution. From the stirring words of the Preamble to the Twenty-seventh Amendment, you will gain new insights into the ideas that made America, important debates that continue from our Founding, and the Constitution's true meaning for our nation
Author: Louis M. Imbeau
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319149539
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
This volume is a very interesting research project that includes the most careful work on constitutional power and limits to authority of which I am aware. In general, the contributors find that constitutional negotiations normally took place in settings where uncertainty was considerable. They also find that the more detailed the characterization of power relationships, the more liberal and durable the democracy tends to be. Roger D. Congleton This book addresses the issue of the impact of uncertainty in constitutional design. To what extent do constitution drafters and adopters make their decisions behind a veil of ignorance? More fundamentally, can we infer from constitutional texts the degree of uncertainty faced by constitution drafters and adopters? After an introduction (chapter 1), the book proceeds in two parts. The first part (chapters 2 to 4) introduces to the intellectual filiation of the project and to its theoretical and methodological foundations. The second part (chapters 5 to 13) presents nine case studies built on the same structure: historical account of the making of the Constitution, results of the content analysis of the constitutional text, and discussion of specific issues raised in the analysis. Chapter 14 concludes.
Author: Ray Raphael
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 159558949X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
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Book Description
First published ten years ago, award-winning historian Ray Raphael’s Founding Myths has since established itself as a landmark of historical myth-busting. With the author’s trademark wit and flair, Founding Myths exposes the errors and inventions in America’s most cherished tales, from Paul Revere’s famous ride to Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech. For the seventy thousand readers who have been captivated by Raphael’s eye-opening accounts, history has never been the same. In this revised tenth-anniversary edition, Raphael revisits the original myths and explores their further evolution over the past decade, uncovering new stories and peeling back additional layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how school textbooks and popular histories often reinforce rather than correct historical mistakes. A book that “explores the truth behind the stories of the making of our nation” (National Public Radio), this revised edition of Founding Myths will be a welcome resource for anyone seeking to separate historical fact from fiction.
