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Author: Edward V. Schneier Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 9780742530744 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
By examining the institutions of government through the lens of constitution-making, Crafting Constitutional Democracies provides a broad and insightful introduction to comparative politics. Drawn from a series of lectures given in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the drafting of the U.S. constitution, the book illustrates the problems faced by generations of founders, through numerous historic and contemporary examples. Both Indonesia in 1999 and the United States in 1789 faced the same basic issue: how to construct a central government for a large and diverse nation that allowed the majority of the people to govern themselves without intruding on the rights of minorities. What kinds of institutions make for 'good government'? What factors need to be considered in designing a government? Author Edward Schneier explores these questions through a rich variety of examples from both recent and historic transitions to democracy. Drawing frequently upon the arguments of the American Federalist Papers and more contemporary theories of democratization, Crafting Constitutional Democracies lucidly explores the key questions of how and why democracies succeed and fail. A concluding chapter on constitutional change and decline raises provocative and important questions about the lessons that citizens of the world's older democracies might take from the struggles of the new.
Author: Edward V. Schneier Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 9780742530744 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
By examining the institutions of government through the lens of constitution-making, Crafting Constitutional Democracies provides a broad and insightful introduction to comparative politics. Drawn from a series of lectures given in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the drafting of the U.S. constitution, the book illustrates the problems faced by generations of founders, through numerous historic and contemporary examples. Both Indonesia in 1999 and the United States in 1789 faced the same basic issue: how to construct a central government for a large and diverse nation that allowed the majority of the people to govern themselves without intruding on the rights of minorities. What kinds of institutions make for 'good government'? What factors need to be considered in designing a government? Author Edward Schneier explores these questions through a rich variety of examples from both recent and historic transitions to democracy. Drawing frequently upon the arguments of the American Federalist Papers and more contemporary theories of democratization, Crafting Constitutional Democracies lucidly explores the key questions of how and why democracies succeed and fail. A concluding chapter on constitutional change and decline raises provocative and important questions about the lessons that citizens of the world's older democracies might take from the struggles of the new.
Author: Mark A. Graber Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190889004 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Is the world facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracy? There is a genuine debate about the meaning of the various political events that have, for many scholars and observers, generated a feeling of deep foreboding about our collective futures all over the world. Do these events represent simply the normal ebb and flow of political possibilities, or do they instead portend a more permanent move away from constitutional democracy that had been thought triumphant after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989? Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? addresses these questions head-on: Are the forces weakening constitutional democracy around the world general or nation-specific? Why have some major democracies seemingly not experienced these problems? How can we as scholars and citizens think clearly about the ideas of "constitutional crisis" or "constitutional degeneration"? What are the impacts of forces such as globalization, immigration, income inequality, populism, nationalism, religious sectarianism? Bringing together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies in the 21st century, these essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions in regimes, regions, and across the globe, believing at this stage that diagnosis is of central importance - as Abraham Lincoln said in his "House Divided" speech, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."
Author: Alfred Stepan Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 0801899427 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
Political wisdom holds that the political boundaries of a state necessarily coincide with a nation's perceived cultural boundaries. Today, the sociocultural diversity of many polities renders this understanding obsolete. This volume provides the framework for the state-nation, a new paradigm that addresses the need within democratic nations to accommodate distinct ethnic and cultural groups within a country while maintaining national political coherence. First introduced briefly in 1996 by Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, the state-nation is a country with significant multicultural—even multinational—components that engenders strong identification and loyalty from its citizens. Here, Indian political scholar Yogendra Yadav joins Stepan and Linz to outline and develop the concept further. The core of the book documents how state-nation policies have helped craft multiple but complementary identities in India in contrast to nation-state policies in Sri Lanka, which contributed to polarized and warring identities. The authors support their argument with the results of some of the largest and most original surveys ever designed and employed for comparative political research. They include a chapter discussing why the U.S. constitutional model, often seen as the preferred template for all the world’s federations, would have been particularly inappropriate for crafting democracy in politically robust multinational countries such as India or Spain. To expand the repertoire of how even unitary states can respond to territorially concentrated minorities with some secessionist desires, the authors develop a revised theory of federacy and show how such a formula helped craft the recent peace agreement in Aceh, Indonesia. Empirically thorough and conceptually clear, Crafting State-Nations will have a substantial impact on the study of comparative political institutions and the conception and understanding of nationalism and democracy.
Author: Jeffrey K. Tulis Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400836794 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Constitutional democracy is at once a flourishing idea filled with optimism and promise--and an enterprise fraught with limitations. Uncovering the reasons for this ambivalence, this book looks at the difficulties of constitutional democracy, and reexamines fundamental questions: What is constitutional democracy? When does it succeed or fail? Can constitutional democracies conduct war? Can they preserve their values and institutions while addressing new forms of global interdependence? The authors gathered here interrogate constitutional democracy's meaning in order to illuminate its future. The book examines key themes--the issues of constitutional failure; the problem of emergency power and whether constitutions should be suspended when emergencies arise; the dilemmas faced when constitutions provide and restrict executive power during wartime; and whether constitutions can adapt to such globalization challenges as immigration, religious resurgence, and nuclear arms proliferation. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Sotirios Barber, Joseph Bessette, Mark Brandon, Daniel Deudney, Christopher Eisgruber, James Fleming, William Harris II, Ran Hirschl, Gary Jacobsohn, Benjamin Kleinerman, Jan-Werner Müller, Kim Scheppele, Rogers Smith, Adrian Vermeule, and Mariah Zeisberg.
Author: Giuseppe Di Palma Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520072146 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 263
Book Description
"Giuseppe Di Palma's book could not be more timely, given the snowballing events that are gaining momentum in Eastern and Western Europe. . . . It represents a truly fresh look at the red-hot issue of transitions to democracy."—Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University
Author: Todd A. Eisenstadt Publisher: ISBN: 9781316749029 Category : Constitutional law Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
When building democracy through new constitutions, the level of participation matters more than the content of the constitution itself. This book examines this theory
Author: Tom Ginsburg Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022656441X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 306
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: Thomas Fleiner Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3540764127 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 687
Book Description
After World War II, states transformed into ‘collective fortresses’ in order to protect competing ideological systems. The debate on post-modern statehood heavily built on ideological disputes between liberalism and communism, over the nature of the economic and social system, and the state and government that could sustain such a system. What is an ‘ideologically acceptable’ state-concept; which tasks and fu- tions should the state fulfil, and how to legitimate not only democratic, but also authoritarian and even totalitarian regimes? These questions were at the very centre of state theory. However, after the fall of communism in Europe and the former Soviet Union, the discourse of state and government scholarship radically changed. The need for a profound shift in the state paradigm was emerging. The time after 1989 seemed to proclaim that the nation-state had lost its raison d’être as an island of undisputed and unlimited sovereignty. A globalised world order broke open the ‘fortress state’ that developed within the tradition of European constitutionalism. Given the simultaneous structural changes to the nation-state’s foundations, socio-economic and political reforms going hand in hand with new constitutional designs, the ‘state in transition’ started paving the way towards a new state paradigm, and not only with regard to the states in the process of de- cratic transformation from socialist into liberal constitutional democracies.
Author: Ray A. Moore Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 9780195171761 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 436
Book Description
In 1945 Emperor Hirohito signed Japan's unconditional surrender to the United States and its allies. Tackling a timely subject this work takes the controversial stand that the constitution of Japan was not imposed as a document of defeat.