Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeffrey K. Tulis teaches political science at the University of Texas, Austin. His books include The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton). Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics at Princeton University. His numerous books include Democracy at Risk.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"In the face of emergency, war, and globalization, even the most enduring and successful constitution in history still confronts the possibility of constitutional failure. Focusing on this central theme, the authoritative essays contained in this book offer cogent arguments, a range of subjects, and a genuine diversity of opinion."--Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University

"Provocative and insightful, these essays offer a badly needed tutorial on how to think about the fate of constitutional democracy in the twenty-first century. The volume as a whole demonstrates that the best friends of constitutionalism are those who are unafraid to explore its limits."--Bryan Garsten, Yale University

"In this book, some of our most subtle thinkers about the constitutional order discuss its fundamental aspects. These challenging and provocative essays should lead us to think more deeply about problems of constitutionalism in a twenty-first century world of seemingly permanent war and emergency, executive power, religious conflict, and globalization."--Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School

"I cannot remember reading another collection of essays that is so strong and compelling. There could hardly be a more important topic than the limits of constitutional democracy in this day and age, and I found every single essay extremely interesting."--Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School

"This unique collection--of original, thoughtful, and stimulating essays by many of the country's top constitutional scholars--looks into the nature of constitutional democracy and its capacity to achieve benign ends. The essays provide illuminating and provocative answers and reflect a wide variety of views on the meaning of constitutional success and failure."--Donald P. Kommers, Notre Dame Law School

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

THE LIMITS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Introduction. Constitutional Boundaries JEFFREY K. TULIS AND STEPHEN MACEDO...........................................................................................1PART I WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL FAILURE?.................................................................................................................................111. Constitutional Failure: Ultimately Attitudinal SOTIRIOS A. BARBER..................................................................................................132. Successful Failures of the American Constitution JAMES E. FLEMING..................................................................................................293. The Disharmonic Constitution GARY JEFFREY JACOBSOHN................................................................................................................474. Constitution of Failure The Architectonics of a Well-Founded Constitutional Order WILLIAM F. HARRIS II............................................................66PART II HOW CAN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY CONTEND WITH EMERGENCY?.......................................................................................................895. "In the Name of National Security" Executive Discretion and Congressional Legislation in the Civil War and World War I BENJAMIN A. KLEINERMAN.....................916. The Possibility of Constitutional Statesmanship JEFFREY K. TULIS...................................................................................................1127. Exceptions That Prove the Rule Embedding Emergency Government in Everyday Constitutional Life KIM LANE SCHEPPELE..................................................124PART III HOW CAN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY CONTEND WITH WAR?............................................................................................................1558. The Glorious Commander in Chief ADRIAN VERMEULE....................................................................................................................1579. The Relational Conception of War Powers MARIAH ZEISBERG............................................................................................................16810. Confronting War Rethinking Jackson's Concurrence in Youngstown v. Sawyer JOSEPH M. BESSETTE......................................................................19411. War and Constitutional Change MARK E. BRANDON.....................................................................................................................217PART IV HOW CAN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY CONTEND WITH GLOBALIZATION?...................................................................................................23712. Three Constitutionalist Reponses to Globalization JAN-WERNER MÜLLER..........................................................................................23913. Constitutionalism in a Theocratic World RAN HIRSCHL...............................................................................................................25614. Constitutional Democracies, Coercion, and Obligations to Include ROGERS M. SMITH..................................................................................28015. Omniviolence, Arms Control, and Limited Government DANIEL DEUDNEY.................................................................................................297Conclusion. Constitutional Engagement and Its Limits CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER.........................................................................................317List of Contributors...................................................................................................................................................329Index..................................................................................................................................................................333

Chapter One

SOTIRIOS A. BARBER

As ideological divisions widen and continue to weaken the common ground of the nation's civic life, American constitutional theorists and social scientists have reopened a recurring question: is the Constitution adequate to its ends? Alan Wolfe laments the moralistic populism and public cynicism that has all but destroyed Congress's institutional integrity and democratic accountability. Sanford Levinson shows how "hard-wired" constitutional provisions like the Electoral College and the composition of the Senate contribute to bad policies and institutional decay. Ronald Dworkin proposes a theory of human dignity as common moral ground for rescuing American politics from ideological warfare and restoring genuine political debate. In the most pessimistic work of this expanding genre, Sheldon Wolin argues that a constitutionalism of "limited and modest ambitions" cannot control a regime whose sources of power are inherently expansive "capital, technology, and science" and whose aims are corporate profits in a global economy and security from terrorism that its economic and cultural expansion provokes.

Is the U.S. Constitution (government under the Constitution) failing, then? In what ways might it be failing? Was it programmed to fail from the beginning, as Wolin suggests? Or is it repairable, as Levinson, Dworkin, and Wolfe assume? These are the first-order questions of constitutional failure: the whether, why, and how of constitutional failure as a present reality. But there are prior questions, including the question of what might be meant by "constitutional failure"—the questions we should debate when deciding whether the constitution is failing. I address parts of this complicated issue here and submit that (1) constitutional failure is at bottom as much or more an attitudinal than an institutional matter, (2) constitutional failure centrally involves a failure to maintain a "healthy politics," and (3) a successful constitution would provide for the probable failure of formal institutions by equipping its people for the task of institutional reform.

Failure to Do What?

Talk of constitutional failure presupposes a notion of constitutional success. What, then, is the U.S. Constitution supposed to accomplish? Americans generally assume that their formal constitution aims to secure negative rights against government, to maintain processes of popular choice, and to pursue substantive ends beyond rights and democratic processes. Yet theorists differ on which of these aims to emphasize. Negative constitutionalists including Randy Barnett and Michael Zuckert emphasize negative rights over constitutional processes and substantive ends like national security and the general welfare. Procedural constitutionalists like John Hart Ely emphasize democratic processes and associated values and conditions (political freedoms mostly) over goods like national security and prosperity. Ends-oriented, or, as I prefer, welfare constitutionalists, such as Martin Diamond, Stephen Elkin, Lawrence Sager, Cass Sunstein, and Walter Murphy, place equal or greater emphasis on preambular ends like the common defense and the general welfare.

A welfarist accepts Madison's claim in The Federalist that "the supreme object" of any legitimate government is the people's "real welfare" and that "no form of Government whatever, has any other value, than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object." My previous argument for welfare...