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Author: Jack M. Balkin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0197530990
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
"America's constitutional system evolves through the interplay between three cycles: the rise and fall of dominant political parties, the waxing and waning of political polarization, and alternating episodes of constitutional rot and constitutional renewal. America's politics seems especially fraught today because we are nearing the end of the Republican Party's long political dominance, at the height of a long cycle of political polarization, and suffering from an advanced case of "constitutional rot." Constitutional rot is the historical process through which republics become increasingly less representative and less devoted to the common good. Caused by increasing economic inequality and loss of trust, constitutional rot seriously threatens the constitutional system. But America has been through these cycles before, and will get through them again. America is in a Second Gilded Age slowly moving toward a second Progressive Era, during which polarization will eventually recede. The same cycles shape the work of the federal courts and theories about constitutional interpretation. They explain why political parties have switched sides on judicial review not once but twice in the twentieth century. Polarization and constitutional rot alter the political supports for judicial review, make fights over judicial appointments especially bitter, and encourage constitutional hardball. The Constitution ordinarily relies on the judiciary to protect democracy and to prevent political corruption and self-entrenching behavior. But when constitutional rot is advanced, the Supreme Court is likely to be ineffective and may even make matters worse. Courts cannot save the country from constitutional rot; only political mobilization can"--
Author: Jack M. Balkin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0197530990
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Get Book Here
Book Description
"America's constitutional system evolves through the interplay between three cycles: the rise and fall of dominant political parties, the waxing and waning of political polarization, and alternating episodes of constitutional rot and constitutional renewal. America's politics seems especially fraught today because we are nearing the end of the Republican Party's long political dominance, at the height of a long cycle of political polarization, and suffering from an advanced case of "constitutional rot." Constitutional rot is the historical process through which republics become increasingly less representative and less devoted to the common good. Caused by increasing economic inequality and loss of trust, constitutional rot seriously threatens the constitutional system. But America has been through these cycles before, and will get through them again. America is in a Second Gilded Age slowly moving toward a second Progressive Era, during which polarization will eventually recede. The same cycles shape the work of the federal courts and theories about constitutional interpretation. They explain why political parties have switched sides on judicial review not once but twice in the twentieth century. Polarization and constitutional rot alter the political supports for judicial review, make fights over judicial appointments especially bitter, and encourage constitutional hardball. The Constitution ordinarily relies on the judiciary to protect democracy and to prevent political corruption and self-entrenching behavior. But when constitutional rot is advanced, the Supreme Court is likely to be ineffective and may even make matters worse. Courts cannot save the country from constitutional rot; only political mobilization can"--
Author: Jack M. Balkin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674063031
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
Originalism and living constitutionalism, so often understood to be diametrically opposing views of our nation’s founding document, are not in conflict—they are compatible. So argues Jack Balkin, one of the leading constitutional scholars of our time, in this long-awaited book. Step by step, Balkin gracefully outlines a constitutional theory that demonstrates why modern conceptions of civil rights and civil liberties, and the modern state’s protection of national security, health, safety, and the environment, are fully consistent with the Constitution’s original meaning. And he shows how both liberals and conservatives, working through political parties and social movements, play important roles in the ongoing project of constitutional construction. By making firm rules but also deliberately incorporating flexible standards and abstract principles, the Constitution’s authors constructed a framework for politics on which later generations could build. Americans have taken up this task, producing institutions and doctrines that flesh out the Constitution’s text and principles. Balkin’s analysis offers a way past the angry polemics of our era, a deepened understanding of the Constitution that is at once originalist and living constitutionalist, and a vision that allows all Americans to reclaim the Constitution as their own.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022661204X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
It is no longer controversial that the American political system has become deeply dysfunctional. Today, only slightly more than a quarter of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction, while sixty-three percent believe we are on a downward slope. The top twenty words used to describe the past year include “chaotic,” “turbulent,” and “disastrous.” Donald Trump’s improbable rise to power and his 2016 Electoral College victory placed America’s political dysfunction in an especially troubling light, but given the extreme polarization of contemporary politics, the outlook would have been grim even if Hillary Clinton had won. The greatest upset in American presidential history is only a symptom of deeper problems of political culture and constitutional design. Democracy and Dysfunction brings together two of the leading constitutional law scholars of our time, Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, in an urgently needed conversation that seeks to uncover the underlying causes of our current crisis and their meaning for American democracy. In a series of letters exchanged over a period of two years, Levinson and Balkin travel—along with the rest of the country—through the convulsions of the 2016 election and Trump’s first year in office. They disagree about the scope of the crisis and the remedy required. Levinson believes that our Constitution is fundamentally defective and argues for a new constitutional convention, while Balkin, who believes we are suffering from constitutional rot, argues that there are less radical solutions. As it becomes dangerously clear that Americans—and the world—will be living with the consequences of this pivotal period for many years to come, it is imperative that we understand how we got here—and how we might forestall the next demagogue who will seek to beguile the American public.
Author: Thomas E. Mann
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096735
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America's two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established social and economic policy regime.In It's Even Worse Than It Looks, congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress -- and the United States -- to the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a governing system that, unlike a parliamentary democracy, makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. Second, while both parties participate in tribal warfare, both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces what the authors call &"asymmetric polarization," with the Republican Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the Democrats politically, no matter the cost.With dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends, a coarsened political culture and a new partisan media, the authors conclude that there is no &"silver bullet"; reform that can solve everything. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the House and Senate, while debunking others, like independent or third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction, American democracy will remain in serious danger.
Author: Frank Fagan
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785364332
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
Legal reasoning, pronouncements of judgment, the design and implementation of statutes, and even constitution-making and discourse all depend on timing. This compelling study examines the diverse interactions between law and time, and provides important perspectives on how law's architecture can be understood through time. The book revisits older work on legal transitions and breaks new ground on timing rules, especially with respect to how judges, legislators and regulators use time as a tool when devising new rules. At its core, The Timing of Lawmaking goes directly to the heart of the most basic of legal debates: when should we respect the past, and when should we make a clean break for the future?
Author: Bruce A. Ackerman
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814798896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Nine of America's top legal experts rewrite the landmark desegregation decision as they would like it to have been written.
Author: John F. Kowal
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620975629
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union.
Author: Stephen Skowronek
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629432
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
In this expanded third edition, renowned scholar Stephen Skowronek, addresses Donald J. Trump’s presidency. Skowronek’s insights have fundamentally altered our understanding of the American presidency. His “political time” thesis has been particularly influential, revealing how presidents reckon with the work of their predecessors, situate their power within recent political events, and assert their authority in the service of change. A classic widely used in courses on the presidency, Skowronek’s book has greatly expanded our understanding of and debates over the politics of leadership. It clarifies the typical political problems that presidents confront in political time, as well as the likely effects of their working through them, and considers contemporary innovations in our political system that bear on the leadership patterns from the more distant past. Drawing out parallels in the politics of leadership between Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt and between James Polk and John Kennedy, it develops a new and revealing perspective on the presidential leadership of Clinton, Bush, Obama, and now Trump. In this third edition Skowronek carefully examines the impact of recent developments in government and politics on traditional leadership postures and their enactment, given the current divided state of the American polity, the impact of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, of a more disciplined and homogeneous Republican party, of conservative advocacy of the “unitary theory” of the executive, and of progressive disillusionment with the presidency as an institution. A provocative review of presidential history, Skowronek’s book brims with fresh insights and opens a window on the institution of the executive office and the workings of the American political system as a whole. Intellectually satisfying for scholars, it also provides an accessible volume for students and general readers interested in the American presidency.
Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393635252
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 733
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Book Description
“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.
Author: Charlie Kirk
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1682612473
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The MAGA Doctrine! Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk shares a vision for America’s future embracing first principles, free markets, and small government. Kirk provides a roadmap on how to return to a free America, with an emphasis on reaching our youth and engaging them in the process. During the 2016 Presidential election cycle, it has become clear that there is growing frustration on the part of many Americans with the general direction of the nation. There has been an abandonment of the principles of free markets and limited government upon which America was founded. We didn't get to this point over just the last eight years and it’s going to take more than one or two election cycles to reverse it. In Time for a Turning Point Charlie Kirk shows exactly what needs to be done and how it needs to be done to restore America's freedom. This is a book of hope, not despair—book of action, not condolences.
