Constitutional Self-Government
Christopher L. Eisgruber
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0674025407
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Most of us regard the Constitution as the foundation of American democracy. How, then, are we to understand the restrictions that it imposes on legislatures and voters? Why, for example, does the Constitution allow unelected judges to exercise so much power? And why is this centuries-old document so difficult to amend? In short, how can we call ourselves a democracy when we are bound by an entrenched, and sometimes counter-majoritarian, constitution?
In Constitutional Self-Government, Christopher Eisgruber focuses directly on the Constitution's seemingly undemocratic features. Whereas other scholars have tried to reconcile these features with majority rule, or simply acknowledged them as necessary limits on democracy, Eisgruber argues that constitutionalism is best regarded not as a constraint upon self-government, but as a crucial ingredient in a complex, non-majoritarian form of democracy. In an original and provocative argument, he contends that legislatures and elections provide only an incomplete representation of the people, and he claims that the Supreme Court should be regarded as another of the institutions able to speak for Americans about justice. At a pivotal moment of worldwide interest in judicial review and renewed national controversy over the Supreme Court's role in politics, Constitutional Self-Government ingeniously locates the Constitution's value in its capacity to sustain an array of institutions that render self-government meaningful for a large and diverse people.
Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship
Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present
Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right, and Center
Democracy and New Media (Media in Transition)
Rule for their own benefit or on the basis of their own idiosyncratic ideas about justice and morality. Minority rule is a distinct possibility in countries that permit officials to choose their own successors, or that select officials on the basis of their supposedly royal birth, or that watch powerful military factions fight for control of the government. A good way to guard against minority rule is to make sure that all public officials owe their offices, directly or indirectly, to a fair vote of.
Practice of judicial review. In response to the charge, I have proposed that the Supreme Court can be regarded as a representative institution which is well constituted to speak on the people’s behalf about matters of principle. One might reject my argument on the ground that the Court’s democratic credentials are rendered unsatisfactory by the absence of any limit on the length of time that justices may serve or by the fact that all justices are lawyers. One cannot, however, answer my argument.
Ones that have some popular appeal. What other goals might we use to measure the success of democratic political systems? Our discussion of political stability and institutional inertia in Chapter 1 implicitly drew upon a second criterion for judging democracy, which we might call effective choice. A democratic government ought to be able to deliver what its citizens want. Despite their disagreements, for example, nearly all citizens will prefer a prosperous economy to a struggling one; they will.
American people. There is no way for them to do that without making controversial judgments about justice. American judges have never been able to avoid taking contestable stands about political issues. I doubt that they could do so; in any event, I shall argue that they ought not even to try. Professors and judges have disserved the American political system by promulgating theories that call upon judges to aim for neutrality or to suppress their moral convictions when deciding cases. 8.
Constitution deals with the allocation of power among the branches of the national government. The separation of powers is a means for promoting democratic accountability and securing individual liberty. One might accordingly believe that the Constitution’s references to “legislative powers,” “executive power,” and “judicial power” raise issues of moral principle. If so, one might conclude that judges should play a prominent role in the interpretation of these provisions. The Supreme Court has in.