Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and the Breakdown of American Politics
Stephen E. Gottlieb
Abstract
The book attacks the output of the Roberts Court based on its implications for the breakdown of democracy. Part I explores traditions concerning the preservation of democracy here and abroad. Efforts to nurture democracy were pioneered by the founding generation, picked up by the Supreme Court in the era of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, adapted by the international community after World War II, and then interpreted by foreign constitutional courts. Part II examines postwar scientific studies of why democratic government survives or breaks down. These studies focus on constitutional guaran ... More
The book attacks the output of the Roberts Court based on its implications for the breakdown of democracy. Part I explores traditions concerning the preservation of democracy here and abroad. Efforts to nurture democracy were pioneered by the founding generation, picked up by the Supreme Court in the era of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, adapted by the international community after World War II, and then interpreted by foreign constitutional courts. Part II examines postwar scientific studies of why democratic government survives or breaks down. These studies focus on constitutional guarantees, disparities in resources, the polarization of America, and the weakening of institutions that once formed the American melting pot, unifying us as a people, and the risks from the threat of force, public or private. Part III focuses on the legal issues. The postwar science provides the basis for a critical evaluation of the Roberts Court’s impact on the future of democracy in America. The book concludes by making the case that constitutional interpretation is incoherent and illogical absent concern for the future of democracy in America. The Roberts Court should have behaved differently by constitutional injunction.
Keywords:
breakdown,
constitutional interpretation,
democracy in America,
disparities,
foreign constitutional courts,
melting pot,
polarization,
threat of force
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780814732427 |
| Published to NYU Press Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.18574/nyu/9780814732427.001.0001 |
