Constitutional Amendments
Constitutional Amendments

Author: Richard Albert

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0190640499

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Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. This book shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.

Creating Constitutional Change
Creating Constitutional Change

Author: Gregg Ivers

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780813923031

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"Because the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court interpret the Constitution, their decisions can create constitutional change. For quite some time, general readers interested in understanding those changes have not had access to a concise volume that explores the major decisions through which those changes occur. In order to make a wide range of decisions more comprehensible, Gregg Ivers and Kevin T. McGuire commissioned twenty-four outstanding scholars to write essays on a selected series of Supreme Court cases. Chosen for their contemporary relevance, most of the cases addressed in this informative reader are from the last half-century, extending right up through Bush v. Gore and the 2003 Michigan affirmative actions cases"--Unedited summary from paperback cover.

Constitutional Amendments
Constitutional Amendments

Author: Richard Albert

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0190640480

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Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. This book blends theory with practice to answer two all important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional amendment?

Participatory Constitutional Change
Participatory Constitutional Change

Author: Xenophon Contiades

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1317083881

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This book explores the recent trend of enhancing the role of the people in constitutional change. It traces the reasons underlying this tendency, the new ways in which it takes form, the possibilities of success and failure of such ventures as well as the risks and benefits it carries. To do so, it examines the theoretical aspects of public participation in constitutional decision-making, offers an analysis of the benefits gained and the problems encountered in countries with long-standing experience in the practice of constitutional referendums, discusses the recent innovative constitution-making processes employed in Iceland and Ireland in the post financial crisis context and probes the use of public participation in the EU context. New modes of deliberation are juxtaposed to traditional direct-democratic processes, while the reasons behind this re-emergence of public involvement narratives are discussed from the aspect of comparative constitutional design. The synthetic chapter offers an overview of the emerging normative and comparative issues and provides a holistic approach of the role of the people in constitutional change in an attempt to answer when, where and how this role may be successfully enhanced. The work consists of material specifically written for this volume, and authored by prominent constitutional scholars and experts in public participation and deliberative processes.

Constitutional Politics
Constitutional Politics

Author: Sotirios A. Barber

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2001-12-09

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780691088693

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What does it mean to have a constitution? Scholars and students associated with Walter Murphy at Princeton University have long asked this question in their exploration of constitutional politics and judicial behavior. These scholars, concerned with the making, maintenance, and deliberate change of the Constitution, have made unique and significant contributions to our understanding of American constitutional law by going against the norm of court-centered and litigation-minded research. Beginning in the late 1970s, this new wave of academics explored questions ranging from the nature of creating the U.S. Constitution to the philosophy behind amending it. In this collection, Sotirios A. Barber and Robert P. George bring together fourteen essays by members of this Princeton group--some of the most distinguished scholars in the field. These works consider the meaning of having a constitution, the implications of particular choices in the design of constitutions, and the meaning of judicial supremacy in the interpretation of the Constitution. The overarching ambition of this collection is to awaken a constitutionalist consciousness in its readers--to view themselves as potential makers and changers of constitutions, as opposed to mere subjects of existing arrangements. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Walter F. Murphy, John E. Finn, Christopher L. Eisgruber, James E. Fleming, Jeffrey K. Tulis, Suzette Hemberger, Stephen Macedo, Sanford Levinson, H. N. Hirsch, Wayne D. Moore, Keith E. Whittington, and Mark E. Brandon.

The People’s Constitution
The People’s Constitution

Author: John F. Kowal

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 493

ISBN-13: 1620975629

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The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union.

How Constitutions Change
How Constitutions Change

Author: Dawn Oliver

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-08-09

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 184731788X

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This set of essays explores how constitutions change and are changed in a number of countries, and how the 'constitution' of the EU changes and is changed. For a range of reasons, including internal and external pressures, the constitutional arrangements in many countries are changing. Constitutional change may be formal, involving amendments to the texts of Constitutions or the passage of legislation of a clearly constitutional kind, or informal and organic, as where court decisions affect the operation of the system of government, or where new administrative and other arrangements (eg agencification) affect or articulate or alter the operation of the constitution of the country, without the need to resort to formal change. The countries in this study include, from the EU, a common law country, a Nordic one, a former communist state, several civil law systems, parliamentary systems and a hybrid one (France). Chapters on non EU countries include two on developing countries (India and South Africa), two on common law countries without entrenched written constitutions (Israel and New Zealand), a presidential system (the USA) and three federal ones (Switzerland, the USA and Canada). In the last two chapters the editors conduct a detailed comparative analysis of the jurisdiction-based chapters and explore the question whether any overarching theory or theories about constitutional change in liberal democracies emerge from the study.

The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers

Author: Alexander Hamilton

Publisher: Read Books Ltd

Published: 2018-08-20

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1528785878

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Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.