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Author: Granville Austin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 796
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Book Description
Working a Democratic Constitution tells a very human story of how the social, political and day-to-day lived realities of the Indian people has been reflected in, and in turn directed the course of, constitutional reforms in the country. Through the post independence euphoria to the turbulentyears of Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency' and Rajiv Gandhi's brief period of power, the way in which the constitution has evolved to suit the changing needs of the times is an important indicator of India's successful experience with democracy. Granville Austin is one of the world's leading experts on the Indian constitution. Since his classic work The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (OUP, 1966), he has been working on this long-awaited book, which not only presents archival sources, but also first-hand interviews with andrare documentation by many of the key political and legal figures of the last fifty years. With its wide historical sweep, and meticulously detailed research, this is Austin's magnum opus described by Fali Nariman as a 'great and compassionate work'. The clarity and elegance of Austin's writing makes this book not only a necessary but a pleasurable read for anyone interested in comparative constitutional law and the recent political history of India, and for students, teachers and researchers of the subject.
Author: Granville Austin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 796
Get Book Here
Book Description
Working a Democratic Constitution tells a very human story of how the social, political and day-to-day lived realities of the Indian people has been reflected in, and in turn directed the course of, constitutional reforms in the country. Through the post independence euphoria to the turbulentyears of Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency' and Rajiv Gandhi's brief period of power, the way in which the constitution has evolved to suit the changing needs of the times is an important indicator of India's successful experience with democracy. Granville Austin is one of the world's leading experts on the Indian constitution. Since his classic work The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (OUP, 1966), he has been working on this long-awaited book, which not only presents archival sources, but also first-hand interviews with andrare documentation by many of the key political and legal figures of the last fifty years. With its wide historical sweep, and meticulously detailed research, this is Austin's magnum opus described by Fali Nariman as a 'great and compassionate work'. The clarity and elegance of Austin's writing makes this book not only a necessary but a pleasurable read for anyone interested in comparative constitutional law and the recent political history of India, and for students, teachers and researchers of the subject.
Author: Stephen Breyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424618
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195365577
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Levinson here argues that too many of our Constitution's provisions promote either unjust or ineffective government. Under the existing blueprint, we can neither rid ourselves of incompetent presidents nor assure continuity of government following catastrophic attacks. Worse, our Constitution is the most difficult to amend or update in the world. Levinson boldly challenges the Americans to undertake a long overdue public discussion on how they might best reform this most hallowed document and construct a constitution adequate to our democratic values.
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.
Author: Robert A. Dahl
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300133723
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
In this provocative book, one of our most eminent political scientists questions the extent to which the American Constitution furthers democratic goals. Robert Dahl reveals the Constitution's potentially antidemocratic elements and explains why they are there, compares the American constitutional system to other democratic systems, and explores how we might alter our political system to achieve greater equality among citizens. In a new chapter for this second edition, he shows how increasing differences in state populations revealed by the Census of 2000 have further increased the veto power over constitutional amendments held by a tiny minority of Americans. He then explores the prospects for changing some important political practices that are not prescribed by the written Constitution, though most Americans may assume them to be so.
Author: Arun K Thiruvengadam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1849468702
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
This book provides an overview of the content and functioning of the Indian Constitution, with an emphasis on the broader socio-political context. It focuses on the overarching principles and the main institutions of constitutional governance that the world's longest written constitution inaugurated in 1950. The nine chapters of the book deal with specific aspects of the Indian constitutional tradition as it has evolved across seven decades of India's existence as an independent nation. Beginning with the pre-history of the Constitution and its making, the book moves onto an examination of the structural features and actual operation of the Constitution's principal governance institutions. These include the executive and the parliament, the institutions of federalism and local government, and the judiciary. An unusual feature of Indian constitutionalism that is highlighted here is the role played by technocratic institutions such as the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and a set of new regulatory institutions, most of which were created during the 1990s. A considerable portion of the book evaluates issues relating to constitutional rights, directive principles and the constitutional regulation of multiple forms of identity in India. The important issue of constitutional change in India is approached from an atypical perspective. The book employs a narrative form to describe the twists, turns and challenges confronted across nearly seven decades of the working of the constitutional order. It departs from conventional Indian constitutional scholarship in placing less emphasis on constitutional doctrine (as evolved in judicial decisions delivered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court). Instead, the book turns the spotlight on the political bargains and extra-legal developments that have influenced constitutional evolution. Written in accessible prose that avoids undue legal jargon, the book aims at a general audience that is interested in understanding the complex yet fascinating challenges posed by constitutionalism in India. Its unconventional approach to some classic issues will stimulate the more seasoned student of constitutional law and politics.
Author: Paul T. Hill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226200545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
America’s education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school—something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim offer here a solution that is brilliant for its simplicity and distinctly American sensibility: our public education system needs a constitution. Adapting the tried-and-true framework of our forefathers to the specific governance of education, they show that the answer has been part of our political DNA all along. Most reformers focus on who should control education, but Hill and Jochim show that who governs is less important than determining what powers they have. They propose a Civic Education Council—a democratic body subject to checks and balances that would define the boundaries of its purview as well as each school’s particular freedoms. They show how such a system would prevent regulations meant to satisfy special interests and shift the focus to the real task at hand: improving school performance. Laying out the implications of such a system for parents, students, teachers, unions, state and federal governments, and courts, they offer a vision of educational governance that stays true to—and draws on the strengths of—one of the greatest democratic tools we have ever created.
Author: Madhav Khosla
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980875
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
An Economist Best Book of the Year How India’s Constitution came into being and instituted democracy after independence from British rule. Britain’s justification for colonial rule in India stressed the impossibility of Indian self-government. And the empire did its best to ensure this was the case, impoverishing Indian subjects and doing little to improve their socioeconomic reality. So when independence came, the cultivation of democratic citizenship was a foremost challenge. Madhav Khosla explores the means India’s founders used to foster a democratic ethos. They knew the people would need to learn ways of citizenship, but the path to education did not lie in rule by a superior class of men, as the British insisted. Rather, it rested on the creation of a self-sustaining politics. The makers of the Indian Constitution instituted universal suffrage amid poverty, illiteracy, social heterogeneity, and centuries of tradition. They crafted a constitutional system that could respond to the problem of democratization under the most inhospitable conditions. On January 26, 1950, the Indian Constitution—the longest in the world—came into effect. More than half of the world’s constitutions have been written in the past three decades. Unlike the constitutional revolutions of the late eighteenth century, these contemporary revolutions have occurred in countries characterized by low levels of economic growth and education, where voting populations are deeply divided by race, religion, and ethnicity. And these countries have democratized at once, not gradually. The events and ideas of India’s Founding Moment offer a natural reference point for these nations where democracy and constitutionalism have arrived simultaneously, and they remind us of the promise and challenge of self-rule today.
Author: Thomas Christiano
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191613916
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
What is the ethical basis of democracy? And what reasons do we have to go along with democratic decisions even when we disagree with them? And when do we have reason to say that we may justly ignore democratic decisions? These questions must be answered if we are to have answers to some of the most important questions facing our global community, which include whether there is a human right to democracy and whether we must attempt to spread democracy throughout the globe. This book provides a philosophical account of the moral foundations of democracy and of liberalism. It shows how democracy and basic liberal rights are grounded in the principle of public equality, which tells us that in the establishment of law and policy we must treat persons as equals in ways they can see are treating them as equals. The principle of public equality is shown to be the fundamental principle of social justice. This account enables us to understand the nature and roles of adversarial politics and public deliberation in political life. It gives an account of the grounds of the authority of democracy. It also shows when the authority of democracy runs out. The author shows how the violations of democratic and liberal rights are beyond the legitimate authority of democracy, how the creation of persistent minorities in a democratic society, and the failure to ensure a basic minimum for all persons weaken the legitimate authority of democracy.
Author: Robert A. Goldwin
Publisher: A E I Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
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