Download or read book The Politics of Constitutional Reform in North America written by Rainer-Olaf Schultze and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Politics of Constitutional Reform in North America written by Rainer-Olaf Schultze and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In October 1999, some fifteen academic experts and government practitio ners from Germany and North America gathered for two days at the Uni ver sity of Augsburg to discuss the topic of "Constitutional Reform and Consti tutional Jurisprudence in Canada and the United States." The present volume documents the results of that conference, a collaborative effort of the De partment of Political Science, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and the Institute for Canadian Studies, University of Augsburg. In organizing this workshop, we were guided by two basic sets of ideas and assumptions: First, all "established" democracies are regularly confron ted with the need to adjust their constitutional order to changes in their envi ronment lest democratic stability be transformed into rigidity; in many wes tern nations, including Canada and the United States, developments such as the crisis of the Keynesian welfare-state or the emergence of increasingly heterogeneous, postmodern societies have ushered in an era of heightened, yet not always successful constitutional reform activity. Secondly, however, there is no unique path towards, or model of, an "optimal" constitutional order, however defined; rather, constitutional reform processes, their under Iying normative principles and their outcomes are strongly path and context dependent. Therefore, the participants of the workshop and authors of this volume were asked to examine the specific preconditions, context, nature and impact of recent constitutional reform processes in the Uni ted States and Canada.
Download or read book Constitutional Reform in America written by Charles Meyer Hardin and published by Ames : Iowa State University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hardin argues that the major threat to American constitutional government is the separation of powers doctrine, particularly the division of power between the President and Congress. To correct the imbalance wrought by the separation of powers principle, he suggests constitutional reform toward a form of parliamentary government. He advocates three major reforms: provide defeated presidential candidates with a seat in the House of Representatives to encourage a strong, organized opposition; allow for interim election-year changes in national leadership via votes of confidence; and institute the 4-8-4 proposal that would elect the House of Representatives and half of the Senate every four years (if Senate terms were extended to eight years) at the same time as the election of the President. He also provides a critical review of the literature on constitutional government and reform. ISBN 0-8138-0118-4: $27.95.
Download or read book American Indian Constitutional Reform and the Rebuilding of Native Nations written by Eric D. Lemont and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-08-17 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1975, when the U.S. government adopted a policy of self-determination for American Indian nations, a large number of the 562 federally recognized nations have seized the opportunity to govern themselves and determine their own economic, political, and cultural futures. As a first and crucial step in this process, many nations are revising constitutions originally developed by the U.S. government to create governmental structures more attuned to native people's unique cultural and political values. These new constitutions and the governing institutions they create are fostering greater governmental stability and accountability, increasing citizen support of government, and providing a firmer foundation for economic and political development. This book brings together for the first time the writings of tribal reform leaders, academics, and legal practitioners to offer a comprehensive overview of American Indian nations' constitutional reform processes and the rebuilding of native nations. The book is organized in three sections. The first part investigates the historical, cultural, economic, and political motivations behind American Indian nations' recent reform efforts. The second part examines the most significant areas of reform, including criteria for tribal membership/citizenship and the reform of governmental institutions. The book concludes with a discussion of how American Indian nations are navigating the process of reform, including overcoming the politics of reform, maximizing citizen participation, and developing short-term and long-term programs of civic education.
Download or read book Constitutional Reform and Effective Government written by James Sundquist and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years the public has become increasingly disillusioned and cynical about its governmental institutions. In the face of alarming problems-most notably the $400 billion budget deficit-the government seems deadlocked, reduced to partisan posturing and bickering, with the president and Congress blaming each other for failure. And neither party can be held accountable. The public tendency is to blame individual leaders- or politicians as a class-but an insistent and growing number of experienced statesmen and political scientists believe that much of the difficulty can be traced to the governmental structure itself, designed in the eighteenth century and essentially unchanged since then. Is that inherited constitutional system adequate to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, or has the time come for fundamental change? Should we adopt an electoral system that encourages unified control of the presidency, the Senate and the House? Lengthen terms of office? Limit congressional terms? Abolish or modify the electoral college? Introduce a mechanism for calling special elections? Permit legislators to hold executive offices? Redistribute the balance of powers within the governmental system? In this revised edition of his highly acclaimed 1986 volume, James Sundquist reviews the origins and rationale of the constitutional structure and the current debate about whether reform is needed, then raises practical questions about what changes might work best if a consensus should emerge that the national government is too prone to stalemate to meet its responsibilities. Analyzing the main proposals advanced to adapt the Constitution to current conditions, he attempts to separate the workable ideas from the unworkable, the effective from the ineffective, the possibly feasible from the wholly infeasible, and finally arrives at a set of recommendations of his own.
Download or read book State Constitutions for the Twenty first Century Volume 3 written by G. Alan Tarr and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nationally recognized experts analyze how states deal with major constitutional issues.
Download or read book Recreating the American Republic written by Charles A. Kromkowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-16 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political historians recognize the colonial years and the American Revolution, the early national era and the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the nineteenth century and the American Civil War as the three most important eras in American history. Recreating the American Republic offers the first comparative historical analysis and synthesis of these.
Download or read book Hidden Laws written by Robinson Woodward-Burns and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How state constitutional reform guides and stabilizes American constitutional and political development State constitution reform guides and stabilizes American constitutional and political development. Using data sets and historical case studies, Robinson Woodward-Burns shows how the federal government has repeatedly deferred to state constitutional reform to manage or address difficult national constitutional controversies, including conflicts over the regulation of slavery, banking and taxation, women's suffrage, labor and welfare rights, voting and civil rights, and gender discrimination.
Download or read book The People s Constitution written by John F. Kowal and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Charter versus Federalism written by Alan C. Cairns and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1992-02-18 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to the increasing diversity of the Canadian population -- and to an increasing sensitivity to historical diversities -- the 1982 Constitution Act amended the British North America Act and introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, giving new powers to heterogeneous groups within the Canadian polity. These changes disturbed the equilibrium of an older, federalist Canada whose constitutional concerns were limited to the relative powers of federal and provincial governments and to French-English ethnic/linguistic questions. Cairns underlines the significance of international influences on the development of Canada's constitution, in particular the adoption of the Charter, and examines the constitution's role in shaping Canadians' civic identities and community conceptions. He argues that the constitution is a powerful mobilizing instrument that shapes the people subject to its authority. Canada is now populated by what Cairns calls "Charter Canadians," who see themselves as rights-bearers and tend to look to the federal government as the effective focus of political community. During the Meech Lake affair, the demands of Charter Canadians and politicized aboriginal peoples clashed with Quebec's constitutional aspirations as well as older élite accommodation politics. In addition to the Charter, the 1982 Constitution Act contained a new amending formula that contradicted the Charter's message that the rights of individuals precede those of governments. This formula gave a collective of federal and provincial governments a formal monopoly on constitutional change and encouraged the belief, refuted by the Meech Lake experience, that they could amend the constitution in terms of their own self-interest and announce the results as a fait accompli. The clash between the Charter and the amending formula is constitutionally destabilizing, Cairns argues, because these two parts of the same constitution are based on different understandings of the fundamental purpose of the constitution and for whose benefit it exists. The Meech Lake fiasco, having brought Canada to the brink of disaster, clearly indicates that Canada's future constitutional health depends not only on the reconciliation of Quebec with the rest of Canada but -- respectful of the Charter's message -- on a simultaneous constitutional rapprochement between citizens and governments in the process of constitutional reform.
Download or read book Liberty and Coercion written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.
Download or read book Fixing Democracy written by Javier Corrales and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of institutions, a core concept in comparative politics, has produced many rich and influential theories on the economic and political effects of institutions, yet it has been less successful at theorizing their origins. In Fixing Democracy, Javier Corrales develops a theory of institutional origins that concentrates on constitutions and levels of power within them. He reviews numerous Latin American constituent assemblies and constitutional amendments to explore why some democracies expand rather than restrict presidential powers and why this heightened presidentialism discourages democracy. His signal theoretical contribution is his elaboration on power asymmetries. Corrales determines that conditions of reduced power asymmetry make constituent assemblies more likely to curtail presidential powers, while weaker opposition and heightened power asymmetry is an indicator that presidential powers will expand. The bargain-based theory that he uses focuses on power distribution and provides a more accurate variable in predicting actual constitutional outcomes than other approaches based on functionalism or ideology. While the empirical focus is Latin America, Fixing Democracy contributes a broadly applicable theory to the scholarship both institutions and democracy.
Download or read book The Constitution Under Pressure written by Marcia L. Whicker and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1987-08-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a comprehensive account of the U.S. Constitution--including its evolution and its impact on shaping American government and political representation. In eight fact-filled chapters, the authors carefully explore the Constitution's role. Those involved in the study of American More ... government, constitutional law, judicial behavior, legislative behavior, or politics will find this critical examination systematic, thorough, and thought-provoking.
Download or read book America s Jeffersonian Experiment written by Laura J. Scalia and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, friends and fellow statesmen, had radically different views about constitutionalism. While Madison worried that frequent amendments would endanger the security of rights, Jefferson recommended subjecting constitutions and their embedded principles to regular popular scrutiny. Scalia argues that, when revising state constitutions during the post-founding period, Americans enacted Jefferson's vision, boldly experimenting to broaden the franchise and to secure democratic government." "Through careful analysis of hundreds of speeches for and against the greater empowerment of ordinary citizens, Scalia examines constitutional reform in seven states: Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, and Iowa." "Exploring the wider implications of Jeffersonian democracy, Scalia shows how these state constitutions not only remade the states but also expressed careful deliberation about citizenship, popular sovereignty, individual rights, and America's political identity. America's Jeffersonian Experiment will appeal to those interested in politics, the early American republic, constitutional history and law, liberalism, and republicanism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Reinventing Britain written by Andrew McDonald and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to popular myth, Britain does have a constitution, one that is uncodified and commanded little political interest for most of the twentieth century. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair's New Labour Government launched a program of reform that was striking in its ambition. Reinventing Britain tells the story of Britain's constitutional reform and weighs its long-term significance, with essays both by officials who worked on the reforms and by other leading commentators and academics from Britain and North America. Contributors: Mark Bevir, Jack Citrin, Joseph Fletcher, Robert Hazell, Ailsa Henderson, Kate Malleson, Craig Parsons, Kenneth MacKenzie, Peter Riddell
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Politics in North America written by Yasmeen Abu-Laban and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Politics in North America: Redefining Continental Relations, prominent authors from Canada, the United States, and Mexico explore the politics of redefining the institutional, economic, geographic, and cultural boundaries of North America.
