Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America PDF Download

Author: Aníbal Pérez-Liñán
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464450
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Documents the emergence of a pattern of political instability in Latin America. Traditional military coups have receded in the region, but elected presidents are still ousted from power as a result of recurrent crises. Aníbal Pérez-Liñán shows that presidential impeachment has become the main constitutional instrument employed by civilian elites to depose unpopular rulers. Based on detailed comparative research in five countries and extensive historical information, the book explains why crises without breakdown have become the dominant form of instability in recent years and why some presidents are removed from office while others survive in power. The analysis emphasizes the erosion of presidential approval resulting from corruption and unpopular policies, the formation of hostile coalitions in Congress, and the role of investigative journalism. This book challenges classic assumptions in studies of presidentialism and provides important insights for the fields of political communication, democratization, political behaviour, and institutional analysis.

Author: Laurence Tribe
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1541644875
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
As Congress prepares articles of impeachment of President Trump, read the definitive book on presidential impeachment and how it should be used today. Impeachment is our ultimate constitutional check against an out-of-control executive. But it is also a perilous and traumatic undertaking for the nation. In this authoritative examination, Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz rise above the daily clamor to illuminate impeachment's proper role in our age of broken politics. To End a Presidency is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand how this fearsome power should be deployed.

Author: David O. Stewart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416547495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
An account of the attempt to remove Andrew Johnson from the presidency. It demolishes the myth that Johnson's impeachment was unjustified.

Author: Jon Meacham
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 1984853783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Four experts on the American presidency examine the three times impeachment has been invoked—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton—and explain what it means today. Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment “the most formidable weapon for the purpose of a dominant faction that was ever contrived.” On the one hand, it nullifies the will of voters, the basic foundation of all representative democracies. On the other, its absence from the Constitution would leave the country vulnerable to despotic leadership. It is rarely used, and with good reason. Only three times has a president’s conduct led to such political disarray as to warrant his potential removal from office, transforming a political crisis into a constitutional one. None has yet succeeded. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for failing to kowtow to congressional leaders—and, in a large sense, for failing to be Abraham Lincoln—yet survived his Senate trial. Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against him for lying, obstructing justice, and employing his executive power for personal and political gain. Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern, but in 1999 he faced trial in the Senate less for that prurient act than for lying under oath about it. In the first book to consider these three presidents alone—and the one thing they have in common—Jeffrey A. Engel, Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, and Peter Baker explain that the basis and process of impeachment is more political than legal. The Constitution states that the president “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” leaving room for historical precedent and the temperament of the time to weigh heavily on each case. This book reveals the complicated motives behind each impeachment—never entirely limited to the question of a president’s guilt—and the risks to all sides. Each case depended on factors beyond the president’s behavior: his relationship with Congress, the polarization of the moment, and the power and resilience of the office itself. This is a realist view of impeachment that looks to history for clues about its potential use in the future.

Author: Tom Ginsburg
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 0857931210
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 681

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Book Description
This landmark volume of specially commissioned, original contributions by top international scholars organizes the issues and controversies of the rich and rapidly maturing field of comparative constitutional law. Divided into sections on constitutional design and redesign, identity, structure, individual rights and state duties, courts and constitutional interpretation, this comprehensive volume covers over 100 countries as well as a range of approaches to the boundaries of constitutional law. While some chapters reference the text of legal instruments expressly labeled constitutional, others focus on the idea of entrenchment or take a more functional approach. Challenging the current boundaries of the field, the contributors offer diverse perspectives - cultural, historical and institutional - as well as suggestions for future research. A unique and enlightening volume, Comparative Constitutional Law is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject.

Author: Michael J. Gerhardt
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479824712
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
A clear and comprehensive overview of presidential impeachment from a leading expert in the field As a result of Donald Trump’s presidency, impeachment was once again thrust into the spotlight of American political discussion. However, its history goes back to the very founding of the nation, when American colonists, remembering their grievances against their former king, entrenched the process in their new Constitution. The Law of Presidential Impeachment breaks down both the law and politics of this process, providing a comprehensive, nonpartisan, and up-to-date explanation of the Constitution’s various mechanisms for holding presidents accountable for their misdeeds. Based on a lifetime of scholarly research, as well as unique experience as a witness and consultant in the impeachment trials of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Michael J. Gerhardt’s new book takes the reader back to the basics of presidential impeachments. Rather than provide reasons for or against impeaching particular presidents, he explains the law and procedures that govern impeachment, examining a number of significant, yet under-explored, issues and themes. Gerhardt offers new perspectives on the subject, arguing that it cannot be properly understood in a vacuum, but must instead be viewed in the context of its coordination with such other mechanisms as criminal prosecutions, censure, elections, congressional oversight, and the Fourteenth and Twenty-Fifth Amendments. The Law of Presidential Impeachment will be an invaluable, accessible guide for future generations, giving them a succinct yet remarkably nuanced understanding of this core aspect of our executive branch and overarching governmental system.

Author: John Murphy
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438107536
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
The impeachment process is one of the most serious government proceedings in the United States. This guide dispels the most common myths about the process while setting forth a definition of what it means for a president to be impeached. It includes full-color photographs, sidebars, a glossary, suggestions for further reading, and an index.

Author: Omololu Fagbadebo
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811560412
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
This book explores the politics associated with the exercise of the legislative power of impeachment as intended by the drafters of the Constitution in Nigeria. It interrogates the exercise of the power of impeachment with reference to the intended purpose and examines its failures in the cases of impeachment in the country. It analyzes the interplay of power in the governing institutions in Nigeria’s political system, which involved the understanding of a web of interactions among elites within a political structure relating with others outside its sphere of operation. It presents an analysis of the politics associated with impeachment within the framework of the activities of different political actors operating in different political structures assigned to perform certain statutory roles in the political system. The book shows how the selective use of impeachment provisions as instrument of political vendetta and harassment has weakened the potency of this oversight power of the legislature thereby engendering accountability problem in the Nigerian presidential system.

Author: Allan J. Lichtman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062696831
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Lichtman has written what may be the most important book of the year.” —The Hill What are the ranges and limitations of presidential authority? What are the standards of truthfulness that a president must uphold? What will it take to impeach Donald J. Trump? Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted thirty years of presidential outcomes, answers these questions, and more, in TheCase for Impeachment—a deeply convincing argument for impeaching the 45th president of the United States. In the fall of 2016, Allan J. Lichtman made headlines when he predicted that Donald J. Trump would defeat the heavily favored Democrat, Hillary Clinton, to win the presidential election. Now, in clear, nonpartisan terms, Lichtman lays out the reasons Congress could remove Trump from the Oval Office: his ties to Russia before and after the election, the complicated financial conflicts of interest at home and abroad, and his abuse of executive authority. The Case for Impeachment also offers a fascinating look at presidential impeachments throughout American history, including the often-overlooked story of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, details about Richard Nixon’s resignation, and Bill Clinton’s hearings. Lichtman shows how Trump exhibits many of the flaws (and more) that have doomed past presidents. As the Nixon Administration dismissed the reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as “character assassination” and “a vicious abuse of the journalistic process,” Trump has attacked the “dishonest media,” claiming, “the press should be ashamed of themselves.” Historians, legal scholars, and politicians alike agree: we are in politically uncharted waters—the durability of our institutions is being undermined and the public’s confidence in them is eroding, threatening American democracy itself. Most citizens—politics aside—want to know where the country is headed. Lichtman argues, with clarity and power, that for Donald Trump’s presidency, smoke has become fire.

Author: Alan Dershowitz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510742298
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
"A brilliant lawyer...A new and very important book. I would encourage all people...to read!"—President Donald J. Trump “Absolutely amazing…. If you care about justice...read this book.”—Sean Hannity “Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it’s what happened to everyone else.”—Politico Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. Yet he has come under partisan fire for applying those same principles to Donald Trump during the course of his many appearances in national media outlets as an expert resource on civil liberties and constitutional law. The Case Against Removing Trump seeks to reorient the debate over impeachment to the same standard that Dershowitz has continued to uphold for decades: the law of the United States of America, as established by the Constitution. In the author’s own words: “In the fervor to impeach President Trump, his political enemies have ignored the text of the Constitution. As a civil libertarian who voted against Trump, I remind those who would impeach him not to run roughshod over a document that has protected us all for two and a quarter centuries. In this case against impeachment, I make arguments similar to those I made against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton (and that I would be making had Hillary Clinton been elected and Republicans were seeking to impeach her). Impeachment and removal of a president are not entirely political decisions by Congress. Every member takes an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution sets out specific substantive criteria that MUST be met. I am thrilled to contribute to this important debate and especially that my book will be so quickly available to readers so they can make up their own minds.”