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To what extent is the world-including the United States-facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracies? This collection brings together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies today. The book is organized in four parts: background and how the present situation arose; a selection of specific country studies; global themes and worldwide forces; and conclusions from the above and hypotheses aboutthe future.
About the author
Mark A. Graber is University of Maryland Regents Professor at the Francis King Carey School of Law
Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr., Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School
Mark Tushnet is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Summary
Is the world facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracy?
There is a genuine debate about the meaning of the various political events that have, for many scholars and observers, generated a feeling of deep foreboding about our collective futures all over the world. Do these events represent simply the normal ebb and flow of political possibilities, or do they instead portend a more permanent move away from constitutional democracy that had been thought triumphant after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989?
Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? addresses these questions head-on: Are the forces weakening constitutional democracy around the world general or nation-specific? Why have some major democracies seemingly not experienced these problems? How can we as scholars and citizens think clearly about the ideas of "constitutional crisis" or "constitutional degeneration"? What are the impacts of forces such as globalization, immigration, income inequality, populism, nationalism, religious sectarianism?
Bringing together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies in the 21st century, these essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions in regimes, regions, and across the globe, believing at this stage that diagnosis is of central importance - as Abraham Lincoln said in his "House Divided" speech, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."
Additional text
At the end of the 20th century, constitutional democracy had gained almost universal acceptance. At least, so it seemed. A decade later, we see constitutional democracy declining or mutating into more authoritarian forms of government in a number of countries. In this timely book, more than forty outstanding authors from many parts of the world offer a comprehensive analysis of this development and its causes, which should be of paramount interest not only to scholars and students of law and politics, but to everyone concerned about public affairs.
