Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy

Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy PDF Author: Roger D. Congleton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Papers originally presented at a conference sponsored by the Center for Business and Policy Studies--Acknowlegments.

Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy

Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy PDF Author: Roger D. Congleton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Papers originally presented at a conference sponsored by the Center for Business and Policy Studies--Acknowlegments.

Comparative Constitutional Design

Comparative Constitutional Design PDF Author: Tom Ginsburg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107020565
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Assesses what we know - and do not know - about comparative constitutional design and particular institutional choices concerning executive power and other issues.

The Architecture of Democracy

The Architecture of Democracy PDF Author: Andrew Reynolds
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191529850
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
Democratic design is increasingly seen as the key to crafting stability in the fragile states of the developing world. Getting the democratic institutions right may not guarantee success but getting them wrong has led to violent collapse in many socially divided states. The Architecture of Democracy brings together both theory and case study evidence to provide the reader with an excellent overview of the cutting edge of academic debate and its practical implications for democratic design in the 21st century. The discipline of constitutional engineering reached maturity in the 1990s with theories of ethnic polarization and democratic conflict management being applied in trouble spots across the globe. Andrew Reynolds brings together the leading lights of the discipline to discuss the successes and failures of constitutional design. The two icons of modern constitutional design, Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz, lead off by debating their own contributions to the field. Then Olga Shvetsova, Timothy Frye, and José Antônio Cheibub, present important new evidence from Europe, the Central and Eastern Europe/Asia, and Latin America. Steven Solnick, Yash Ghai, Pippa Norris, and Rein Taagepera analyze the effects of presdential and parliamentary systems, issues of federalism and autonomy, and the varying impact of electoral systems. The book concludes with Brij Lal's case study of Fiji, Brendan O'Leary on Northern Ireland, Bereket Habte Selassie on Eritrea, William Liddle on Indonesia, Rotimi Suburu and Larry Diamond on Nigeria, and David Stuligross and Ashutosh Varshney on India. The Architecture of Democracy is the culmination of the study of constitutional engineering in the third wave of democracy and sets parameters for this crucial research as democracy diffuses across the world.

Constitutional Democracy

Constitutional Democracy PDF Author: Walter F. Murphy
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801884702
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
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Principles of Constitutional Design

Principles of Constitutional Design PDF Author: Donald S. Lutz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139460552
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This book is written for anyone, anywhere sitting down to write a constitution. The book is designed to be educative for even those not engaged directly in constitutional design but who would like to come to a better understanding of the nature and problems of constitutionalism and its fundamental building blocks - especially popular sovereignty and the separation of powers. Rather than a 'how-to-do-it' book that explains what to do in the sense of where one should end up, it instead explains where to begin - how to go about thinking about constitutions and constitutional design before sitting down to write anything. Still, it is possible, using the detailed indexes found in the book, to determine the level of popular sovereignty one has designed into a proposed constitution and how to balance it with an approximate, appropriate level of separation of powers to enhance long-term stability.

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy PDF Author: Tom Ginsburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656438X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can both hinder and hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—often fail as bulwarks against democratic decline. The sobering reality for the United States, Ginsburg and Huq contend, is that the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had unforeseen consequence—leaving the presidency weakly regulated and empowering the Supreme Court conjure up doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit rights violations. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language banned in many other democracies. We—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.

Improving Democracy Through Constitutional Reform

Improving Democracy Through Constitutional Reform PDF Author: Roger D. Congleton
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 146150421X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Do constitutions matter? Are constitutions simply symbols of the political times at which they were adopted, or do they systematically affect the course of public policy? Are the policy crises of failing democracies the result of bad luck or of fundamental problems associated with the major and minor constitutional reforms adopted during their recent histories? The purpose of the present study is to address these questions using a blend of theory, history, and statistical analysis. The Swedish experience provides a nearly perfect laboratory in which to study the effects of constitutional reform. During the past 200 years, Swedish governance has shifted from a king-dominated system with an unelected four-chamber parliament to a bicameral legislature elected with wealth-weighted voting in 1866, and then to a new electoral system based on proportional representation and universal suffrage in 1920, and finally to a unicameral parliamentary system in 1970. All these radical reorganizations of Swedish governance were accomplished peacefully using formal amendment procedures established by previous constitutions. By focusing on constitutional issues rather than Sweden's political history, this book extends our understanding of constitutional reform and parliamentary democracy in general.

Patterns of Constitutional Design

Patterns of Constitutional Design PDF Author: Jonathan Wheatley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317083059
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
To what extent does the constitution-making process matter? By focusing on three central aspects of constitution-making; the nature of the constitution-making body, how it reaches decisions and the way in which a new constitution is legitimized and by examining a wide range of case studies, this international collection from expert contributors provides answers to this crucial question. Bridging the gap between law and political science this book draws together divergent research on the role of constitution making in conflict resolution, constitutional law and democratization and employs a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to unfold and explore the political frameworks of the states affected. Comparative analysis is used to investigate potential causal chains between constitution-making processes and their outcomes in terms of stability, conflict resolution and democracy. By focusing on both procedure and context, the book explores the impact of constitution-making procedures in new and established states and unions in Europe, South America and Africa.

Mechanisms of Democracy

Mechanisms of Democracy PDF Author: Adrian Vermeule
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190450460
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have? Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. In this book, Adrian Vermeule moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small. In established constitutional polities, Vermeule argues that law can and should - and to some extent already does - provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, Vermeule carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.

Deliberative Democracy in America

Deliberative Democracy in America PDF Author: Ethan J. Leib
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271045290
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
We are taught in civics class that the Constitution provides for three basic branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. While the President and Congress as elected by popular vote are representative, can they really reflect accurately the will and sentiment of the populace? Or do money and power dominate everyday politics to the detriment of true self-governance? Is there a way to put &"We the people&" back into government? Ethan Leib thinks there is and offers this blueprint for a fourth branch of government as a way of giving the people a voice of their own. While drawing on the rich theoretical literature about deliberative democracy, Leib concentrates on designing an institutional scheme for embedding deliberation in the practice of American democratic government. At the heart of his scheme is a process for the adjudication of issues of public policy by assemblies of randomly selected citizens convened to debate and vote on the issues, resulting in the enactment of laws subject both to judicial review and to possible veto by the executive and legislative branches. The &"popular&" branch would fulfill a purpose similar to the ballot initiative and referendum but avoid the shortcomings associated with those forms of direct democracy. Leib takes special pains to show how this new branch would be integrated with the already existing governmental and political institutions of our society, including administrative agencies and political parties, and would thus complement rather than supplant them.