Written by 55 of the richest white men, and signed by only 39 of them, the US constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth and misinformation - many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have little idea what it says. This book examines the constitution for what it is - a rulebook for elites to protect capitalism from democracy. Social movements have misplaced faith in the constitution as a tool for achieving justice when it actually impedes social change through the many roadblocks and obstructions we call 'checks and balances'. This stymies urgent progress on issues like labour rights, poverty, public health and climate change, propelling the American people and rest of the world towards destruction. Robert Ovetz's reading of the constitution shows that the system isn't broken. Far from it. It works as it was designed to.

This book discusses in what sense constitutional law has a political dimension, raising the question whether constitutional law is fundamentally political as to its validity, terms of its origin, conceptual structure and/or corresponding practice. It also poses the question whether that dimension is a political-theological dimension. A positive answer to these questions challenges the prevailing view that constitutional law is to be conceived strictly as law, moreover as written law, approved at a certain point in history by a particular power and interpreted as any other law by the judiciary. The essays included in this book, written by leading scholars in constitutional theory - including Martin Loughlin, Paul Kahn, Manon Altwegg-Boussac and Massimo La Torre - address these questions in a timely and original way.

Mr. Beat Connects the Supreme Court History Right to You!Mr. Beat’s The Power of Our Supreme Court is the Supreme Court book of decisions that affect the everyday lives of Americans everywhere. The real democracy of America unveiled. What does the supreme court do? Sure, people care when the court makes a big ruling, but most don’t pay attention to the court’s day-to-day decisions. In this law book, Mr. Beat takes you on a journey through our Supreme Court system, what it is, who is in it and how they got to be there while foreshadowing how it shapes our very future.  A tour of the most influential cases in history. Inspired by Mr. Beat’s court series, The Power of Our Supreme Court walks through many Supreme Court history cases from landmark cases to the more obscure. Matt Beat explains how each case affects us to this day in a way that is engaging, applicable, and easy to understand, even for beginners. Inside, you’ll find: Detailed explanations of the Supreme Court, how it works, and how it affects you A Supreme Court cases book perfect for anyone interested in social science, political science, activism, or law Interesting visuals, charts, and graphs to help contextualize and breakdown the historical significance of big and small cases If you like courtroom books, legal books for lawyers, or books on politics for beginners like How Civil Wars Start, The Color of Law, or The Flip Side of History, you’ll love Mr. Beat’s The Power of Our Supreme Court.

The Scottish independence debate has consequences for Scotland, British politics, the future of the UK - and internationally. In Scotland Rising, Gerry Hassan addresses the key questions in this debate with a deep dive into its history, beyond the usual references to Thatcherism, Toryism and Westminster, by analysing the relative decline of the UK, the nature of the British state, its capitalist economy and politics that underpin it. At the same time, a distinctive, autonomous Scotland has emerged beyond Nichola Sturgeon's SNP and independence that has demanded more self-government. Scotland Rising highlights the importance of culture, stories and collective voices in reshaping how people see Scotland, both in during the first referendum in 2014 and again today. This debate is of relevance to everyone in the UK, including England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Can politics and democracy liberate people from the wreckage of Westminster? And if the Scots can, could it inspire others? Scotland Rising is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the future of Scotland and the UK.

Political realism has recently moved to the centre of debates in contemporary political theory. In this monograph, Matt Sleat presents the first comprehensive overview of the resurgence of interest in realist political theory and develops a unique and original defence of liberal politics in realist terms. Through explorations of the work of a diverse range of thinkers, including Bernard Williams, John Rawls, Raymond Geuss, Judith Shklar, John Gray, Carl Schmitt and Max Weber, the author advances a theory of liberal realism that is consistent with the realist emphasis on disagreement and conflict yet still recognisably liberal in its concern with respecting individuals' freedom and constraining political power. The result is a unique contribution to the ongoing debates surrounding realism and an original and timely re-imagining of liberal theory for the twenty-first century. -- .

Despite the end of the Cold War, the frequency of U.S. military intervention has increased. While military intervention accelerated after 9/11, increasing intervention was demonstrably evident well before 2001. Presidential Decision Making and Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War Era: Go or No-Go analyzes presidential decision making regarding military intervention through a focused, structured comparison of "go" and "no-go" decisions from the four successive administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Dennis Ricci explores competing explanations for why a presidential administration will decide to intervene in one situation and not in another. Since both the situations and decision makers vary across cases, Ricci analyzes explanations for intervention by asking: Why intervene? Why use force or not? Under what conditions or circumstances are intervention decisions made?

Internationally-renowned scholars, including Zygmunt Bauman, Saskia Sassen, Loic Wacquant and Craig Calhoun come together in this exciting new collection to debate the role of the nation state in an age of globalization, examining key areas including finance, migration, terrorism, crime, the welfare state and the legal system.

In recent decades the Ninth Amendment, a provision designed to clarify that the federal government was to be one of enumerated and limited powers, has been turned into an unenumerated rights clause that effectively grants unlimited power to the judiciary. Was this the intent of the framers of the Constitution? McAffee argues that the founders had a rather different set of priorities than ours, and that the goal of enforcing fundamental human rights was not why they drafted any of the first ten amendments. They did not intend to grant to the courts the power to generate fundamental rights, whether by reference to custom or history, reason or natural law, or societal values or consensus. It has become increasingly popular to identify our constitutional order as an experiment in the protection of fundamental human rights and to forget that it is also an experiment in self-government. As fundamental as the founding generation believed basic rights to be, they saw popular authority to make decisions about government as being even more central to the project in which they were engaged. They supported natural law and rights, but they felt strongly that those rights did not bind the people or their government unless they were inserted in the written Constitution. They did not contemplate that there would be unwritten limitations on the powers granted to government.

Federalism-the division of authority between the states and the federal government-ranks among the most important and lasting political and constitutional contributions of the American founders. Since the founding, however, Americans have engaged in a perpetual argument over federalism's proper structure and function. Arranged thematically and covering the entire span of American history, Debating Federalism: From the Founding to Today provides readers with the sources necessary to trace and understand this perennial debate. By examining the theoretical, polemical, political arguments as well as landmark Supreme Court cases, this collection reveals the continuing relevance and contentiousness of federalism in the American constitutional order.

With international attention focused on Hong Kong, many forget that Macau also exists in a delicate "one country, two systems" (OCTS) balance with mainland China. This book provides insights into the circumstances surrounding the less-understood half of China's OCTS policy, including the stagnation of representational government, and the location of any Macau characteristics in the Macau Basic Law. Despite being Hong Kong's sister "Special Administrative Region" (SAR) within the People's Republic of China, Macau's unique constitutional development under Portuguese and Chinese administration remains under-appreciated despite its potential contributions to local, national, and international constitutional discourse. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, including doctrinal, historical, and comparative methodologies, this work fills that gap. The research blends Portuguese, Chinese, and foreign-language sources in order to reconstruct a balanced constitutional narrative. The book focuses on a consequential effect of globalization - that is, the assimilation of a long-standing and unique constitutional order by a new hegemonic sovereign - including processes for internationalization as China opened up, legal harmonization of two distinct legal and socioeconomic orders, juridification of local affairs with the establishment of a new local court system in preparation for handover to the Chinese regime, and democratization (or the lack thereof) among the various communities comprising the Macanese polity before and since. Focusing on Macau's unique development at the crux of European and Chinese empires, and the role it plays as a mirror for Chinese intentions vis-a-vis Hong Kong today, the book will be of interest to those working in constitutional law, politics, and history.

Blending history and social science, this book tracks the role of social movements in shaping German public memory and values since 1945. Drawn from extensive original research, it offers a fresh perspective on the evolution of German democracy through civic confrontation with the violence of its past. Told through the stories of memory activists, the study upends some of the conventional wisdom about modern German political history. An analysis of the decades-long struggle over memory and democracy shows how grassroots actors challenged and then took over public institutions of memorialization. In the process, confrontation of the Holocaust has been pushed to the centre of political culture. In unified Germany, memory politics have shifted again, as activists from East Germany have brought attention to the crimes of the East German state. This book delivers a novel and important contribution to scholarship about postwar Germany and the wider study of memory politics.

Waltenburg and Swinford provide a detailed and systematic examination of state government activity before the U.S. Supreme Court. They provide an explanatory model of state litigation behavior that both rests upon a solid theoretical perspective and places state decisions in a larger political context. After an examination of the evolution of U.S. constitutional law on issues of direct state concern, Waltenburg and Swinford focus most of their attention on qualitative and quanitative analyses of the behavior over time of states in all their roles before the Court. Scholars and other researchers interested in judicial decision-making, Constitutional Law, and inter-governmental relations will find this a particularly useful study.

The United States has become increasingly polarized, although the concept of a two-party system is not new. This book traces the major parties' utter dominance--of the highest elected positions all the way down to "nonpartisan" political offices across the U.S.--from the founding of the Constitution through the 2020 presidential election. Even before the founding of the "modern" Republican Party in 1854 and the next 168-year era of Democratic-GOP dominance, the early decades of American nationhood were ruled in a similar manner by the two major parties of the day. This book is a comprehensive, fast-paced analysis of how the two-party system has grown to be such an affront to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and of the numerous Americans today who appear to accept it as a fact of life.

This Handbook explores the main themes and topics of the emerging field of Global Administrative Law with contributions by leading scholars and experts from universities and organizations around the world. The variety of the subjects addressed and the internationality of the Handbook's perspectives make for a truly global and multi-dimensional view of the field. The book first examines the growth of global administrations, their interactions within global networks, the emergence of a global administrative process, and the development of the rule of law and democratic principles at a global level. It goes on to illustrate the relationship between global law and other legal orders, with particular attention to regional systems and national orders. The final section, devoted to the emergence of a global legal culture, brings the book full circle by identifying the growth of a global epistemic community. The Research Handbook on Global Administrative Law provides a contemporary overview of the nascent field in detailed yet accessible terms, making it a valuable book for university courses. Academics and scholars with an interest in international law, administrative law, public law, and comparative law will find value in this book, as well as legal professionals involved with international and supranational organizations and national civil servants dealing with supranational organizations. Contributors: S. Battini, E. Benvenisti, F. Bignami, F. Cafaggi, L. Casini, S. Cassese, E. Chiti, P. Craig, E. D'Alterio, P. Dann, E. Dunlop, R.F.U. Hernandez, R. Howse, M. Infantino, M. Macchia, M.R. Madsen, B. Marchetti, C. Moellers, E. Morlino, M. Savino, R.B. Stewart, A. Vauchez, G. Vesperini, S. Villalpando, J. Wouters

The American presidency is the single most important political office in the United States, but it is also a complex institution that scholars and the general public still do not fully understand. The scholarly literature on the presidency is extensive, but many aspects of the office have received little--if any--attention and yet are relevant to White House politics. This edited collection takes readers into territory that has been heretofore unexplored or underexplored.

Is the president a representative of the public, and what does this mean? What are the powers of the president to make peace? How do presidents use their office to influence cultural issues? What signficance does the First Lady have as a political/cultural symbol? The established scholars and promising young researchers who contributed to this volume explore these and other important issues. All chapters are linked by a common effort to address issues that need more attention and to discuss how those interested in the future of the American presidency--citizens as well as scholars--can enlarge their understanding of the office, its operations, and its place in American political life.

Zimmerman examines in detail the use of the recall by United States voters to remove elected state and local officials from office. The arguments of recall proponents and opponents are analyzed, and model constitutional and statutory provisions are developed to guide governments considering adoption of the recall or revision of current recall provisions.

This book is the first since 1912 devoted to a national evaluation of the recall. The recall currently is authorized by a constitutional or statutory provision in 26 states and by home rule charters in a number of additional states. Zimmerman examines in detail the use of the recall by United States voters to remove elected state and local officials from office. The arguments of recall proponents and opponents are analyzed, and model constitutional and statutory provisions are developed to guide governments considering adoption of the recall or revision of current recall provisions.

Recall attempts throughout the United States are reviewed to obtain evidence to evaluate the arguments of recall proponents and opponents. The evidence, Zimmerman suggests, generally supports the proponents. The recall has not produced a new era of public official responsibility, yet the device has not caused extensive disruption of state and local governments as feared by early opponents. In his conclusion, Zimmerman analyzes current constitutional and statutory recall provisions to develop model provisions to guide those considering adoption of the recall or revision of existing provisions. This analysis will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers of state and local government, American constitutional law, and public policy.

American Judicial Power: The State Court Perspective is a welcome addition to the breadth of studies on the American legal system and provides an accessible and highly illuminating overview of the state courts and their functions.The study of America's courts is overwhelmingly skewed toward the federal government, and therefore often overlooks state courts and their importance. Michael Buenger and Paul De Muniz fill this gap in the study of American constitutionalism, as they examine the wide and distinctive powers these courts exercise, and their role in administering the bulk of the nation's justice system. This groundbreaking work covers many critical topics pertaining to the state courts, including: a comparison of the role of state and federal courts, the history of America's state courts, the judicial selection processes utilized in the states, the unique roles assigned to state courts and the varying structure of those courts, the relationship between state judicial power and state legislative power, and the opportunities and challenges that are and will be facing the state courts. With an insightful foreword from Sanford Levinson, this revolutionary book will be of interest to students, educators, and researchers in the fields of law, political science, and government. Constitutional law experts will also benefit from an analysis of the state courts and their powers.

In William Howard Taft's Constitutional Progressivism Kevin J. Burns makes a compelling case that Taft's devotion to the Constitution of 1787 contributed to his progressivism. In contrast to the majority of scholarship, which has viewed Taft as a reactionary conservative because of his constitutionalism, Burns explores the ways Taft's commitment to both the Constitution and progressivism drove his political career and the decisions he made as president and chief justice. Taft saw the Constitution playing a positive role in American political life, recognizing that it created a national government strong enough to enact broad progressive reforms. In reevaluating Taft's career, Burns highlights how Taft rejected the 'laissez faire school,' which taught that 'the Government ought to do nothing but run a police force.' Recognizing that the massive industrial changes following the Civil War had created a plethora of socioeconomic ills, Taft worked to expand the national government's initiatives in the fields of trust-busting, land conservation, tariff reform, railroad regulations, and worker safety laws. Burns offers a fuller understanding of Taft and his political project by emphasizing Taft's belief that the Constitution could play a constructive role in American political life by empowering the government to act and by undergirding and protecting the reform legislation the government implemented. Moreover, Taft recognized that if the Constitution could come to the aid of progressivism, political reform might also redound to the benefit of the Constitution by showing its continued relevance and workability in modern America. Although Taft's efforts to promote significant policy-level reforms attest to his progressivism, his major contribution to American political thought is his understanding of the US Constitution as a fundamental law, not a policy-oriented document. In many ways Taft can be thought of as an originalist, yet his originalism was marked by a belief in robust national powers. Taft's constitutionalism remains relevant because while his principles seem foreign to modern legal discourse, his constitutional vision offers an alternative to contemporary political divisions by combining political progressivism-liberalism with constitutional conservatism.