Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do"In modern nations, political disagreement is the source of both the gravest danger and the greatest security," writes Cass Sunstein. All democracies face intense political conflict. But is this conflict necessarily something to fear? In this provocative book, one of our leading political and legal theorists reveals how a nation's divisions of conviction and belief can be used to safeguard democracy. Confronting one explosive political issue after another, from presidential impeachment to the limits of religious liberty, from discrimination against women and gays to the role of the judiciary, Sunstein constructs a powerful new perspective from which to show how democracies negotiate their most divisive real-world problems. He focuses on a series of concrete concerns that go to the heart of the relationship between the idea of democracy and the idea of constitutionalism. Illustrating his discussion with examples from constitutional debates and court-cases in South Africa, Eastern Europe, Israel, America, and elsewhere, Sunstein takes readers through a number of highly charged questions: When should government be permitted to control discriminatory behavior by or within religious organizations? Does it make sense to govern on the basis of popular referenda? Can the right to have an abortion be defended? Can we defend Internet regulation? Should the law step in if children are being schooled in discriminatory preferences and beliefs? Should a constitution protect rights to food, shelter, and health care? Disputes over questions such as these can be fierce enough to pose a grave threat. But in a paradox whose elaboration forms the core of Sunstein's book, it is a nation's apparently threatening diversity of opinion that can ensure its integrity. Extending his important recent work on the way deliberation within like-minded groups can produce extremism, Sunstein breaks new ground in identifying the mechanisms behind political conflict in democratic nations. At the same time, he develops a profound understanding of a constitutional democracy's system of checks and balances. Sunstein shows how a good constitution, fostering a "republic of reasons," enables people of opposing ethical and religious commitments to reach agreement where agreement is necessary, while making it unnecessary to reach agreement when agreement is impossible. A marvel of lucid, subtle reasoning, DESIGNING DEMOCRACY makes invaluable reading for anyone concerned with the promises and pitfalls of the democratic experiment. |
From inside the book
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What Constitutions Do Cass R. Sunstein. This page intentionally left blank [T]he Constitution is not simply some kind of statutory codification.
What Constitutions Do Cass R. Sunstein. This page intentionally left blank [T]he Constitution is not simply some kind of statutory codification.
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... kind of statutory codification of an acceptable or legitimate past. It retains from the past only what is acceptable and represents a radical and decisive break from that part of the past which is unacceptable. It constitutes a decisive ...
... kind of statutory codification of an acceptable or legitimate past. It retains from the past only what is acceptable and represents a radical and decisive break from that part of the past which is unacceptable. It constitutes a decisive ...
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... kind of Aggregating Machine, trying to uncover people's desires, to sum them up, and then to translate them into law. They claim that a democratic government is based on reasons and arguments, not just votes and power. Deliberative ...
... kind of Aggregating Machine, trying to uncover people's desires, to sum them up, and then to translate them into law. They claim that a democratic government is based on reasons and arguments, not just votes and power. Deliberative ...
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... kind of constitution we have, and what kind of democracy we seek. In a deliberative democracy, one of the principal purposes of a constitution is to protect not the rule of the majority but democracy's internal morality, seen in ...
... kind of constitution we have, and what kind of democracy we seek. In a deliberative democracy, one of the principal purposes of a constitution is to protect not the rule of the majority but democracy's internal morality, seen in ...
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... kind should not be compelled by the judiciary. But they too are part of democracy's constitution. None of these points is meant to provide a blueprint for constitutional design. Nor do I attempt to specify the ingredients of well ...
... kind should not be compelled by the judiciary. But they too are part of democracy's constitution. None of these points is meant to provide a blueprint for constitutional design. Nor do I attempt to specify the ingredients of well ...
Contents
3 | |
13 | |
2 Constitutional Principles without Constitutional Theories | 49 |
3 Against Tradition | 67 |
4 What Should Constitutions Say? Secession and Beyond | 95 |
5 Impeaching the President | 115 |
The Nondelegation Canons | 137 |
7 The Anticaste Principle | 155 |
8 Homosexuality and the Constitution | 183 |
9 Sex Equality vs Religion | 209 |
10 Social and Economic Rights? Lessons from South Africa | 221 |
Democracys Constitution | 239 |
Notes | 245 |
Acknowledgments | 261 |
Index | 263 |
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