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Constitutional Hardball
Abstract
For the past several years I have been noticing a phenomenon that seems to me new in my lifetime as a scholar of constitutional law. I call the phenomenon constitutional hardball. This Essay develops the idea that there is such a practice, that there is a sense in which it is new, and that its emergence (or re-emergence) is interesting because it signals that political actors understand that they are in a position to put in place a new set of deep institutional arrangements of a sort I call a constitutional order. A shorthand sketch of constitutional hardball is this: it consists of political claims and practices - legislative and executive initiatives - that are without much question within the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine and practice but that are nonetheless in some tension with existing pre-constitutional understandings. It is hardball because its practitioners see themselves as playing for keeps in a special kind of way; they believe the stakes of the political controversy their actions provoke are quite high, and that their defeat and their opponents' victory would be a serious, perhaps permanent setback to the political positions they hold.The Essay begins in this Part with some examples of constitutional hardball, followed by a description of the practice in more general terms. Part II develops the connection, asserted in this Part, between constitutional hardball and changes in fundamental constitutional arrangements or, in my own terms, constitutional orders. Part III then describes the events surrounding Marbury v. Madison as an episode of constitutional hardball. Part IV offers further elaborations of the concept, emphasizing in particular the ways in which constitutional hardball can fail and defending the concept against the charge that it does not in fact single out a practice that is different from ordinary constitutional politics. Finally, Part V provides some modest normative reflections on constitutional hardball.
... As a final remark on the policy implications of abusive judicial overstay, we mention the concept of constitutional hardball as both problem and possible cure (Pozen, 2019;Tushnet, 2004). It may be, under certain circumstances, that court-hoarding itself is an example of constitutional hardball (or even "beanball" 31 ), especially when "attempting to shift settled understandings of the Constitution in an unusually aggressive or self-entrenching manner" (Fishkin & Pozen, 2018, 923). ...
... It may be, under certain circumstances, that court-hoarding itself is an example of constitutional hardball (or even "beanball" 31 ), especially when "attempting to shift settled understandings of the Constitution in an unusually aggressive or self-entrenching manner" (Fishkin & Pozen, 2018, 923). We think it is more likely to take the defensive form of constitutional hardball than the offensive form, though both are theoretically possible (Tushnet, 2004). On the other hand, hardball measures in response to court-hoarding-used with tact and reason-might play a role in usefully shifting the judicial tenure debate toward sound governance rather than power opportunism. ...
While a slew of recent scholarship has examined the phenomenon of executive overstay, there is little talk about the more complex and equally vexing phenomena of judicial overstay. This article begins to examine the many layers and complexities of judicial overstay by exploring whether the political branches ever seek to prolong abusively the time in office of loyal judges, and if so, by what mechanisms. Illustrating this is not merely a theoretical practice, we label such a phenomenon court‐hoarding, and consider it a subset of the broader category of judicial overstay. Our contribution is two‐fold. First, we argue that while court‐hoarding is a somewhat risky and less‐known governance tactic that is likely to occur only when certain conditions are fulfilled, the potential benefits of court‐hoarding for power consolidation and institutional monopoly power are profound. Second, we contribute to the emerging literature on judicial tenure. More specifically, we add conceptual utility to thinking about judicial tenure—and its abuse—by describing a three‐layer model of court‐hoarding, consisting of a core, a mid‐layer, and a periphery, which correspond to three broad categories of influencing judicial tenure across time and space.
... Political competitiveness can therefore amplify unidimensional conflict. Close divisions, especially when single-party control is seen as a possibility, exacerbate polarization (32), leading to a more confrontational tone of "constitutional hardball" (34) in which governing norms are broken and rules are bent, especially in the service of gaining advantage. Incivility and norm violations by one side are answered in kind when the other side returns to power. ...
... The temporally integrative nature of federal judiciary power increases incentives for legislators and the president to intensify polarized conflict over judicial appointments. Indeed, any institutional rules that would give a long-lasting advantage provide an incentive to engage in hardball tactics (34). As judicial appointments take on outsized importance, they, in turn, become an issue that motivates polarization, thus creating a feedback loop. ...
Democracy often fails to meet its ideals, and these failures may be made worse by electoral institutions. Unwanted outcomes include elite polarization, unresponsive representatives, and the ability of a faction of voters to gain power at the expense of the majority. Various reforms have been proposed to address these problems, but their effectiveness is difficult to predict against a backdrop of complex interactions. Here we outline a path for systems-level modeling to help understand and optimize repairs to US democracy. Following the tradition of engineering and biology, models of systems include mechanisms with dynamical properties that include nonlinearities and amplification (voting rules), positive feedback mechanisms (single-party control, gerrymandering), negative feedback (checks and balances), integration over time (lifetime judicial appointments), and low dimensionality (polarization). To illustrate a systems-level approach, we analyze three emergent phenomena: low dimensionality, elite polarization, and antimajoritarianism in legislatures. In each case, long-standing rules now contribute to undesirable outcomes as a consequence of changes in the political environment. Theoretical understanding at a general level will also help evaluate whether a proposed reform’s benefits will materialize and be lasting, especially as conditions change again. In this way, rigorous modeling may not only shape new lines of research but aid in the design of effective and lasting reform.
... (2018): 17. Jest to rozwinięcie zaproponowanej wcześniejszej przez Tushneta interpretacyjno-normatywnej koncepcji constitutional hardball - Tushnet (2004): 523. Przez ostatnie z pojęć Tushnet rozumie: zachowania (działania, zaniechania, czynności) partii politycznych, prezydenta, parlamentu lub sądów, które "bez wątpienia mieszczą się w graniach wyznaczonych przez obowiązujące doktryny i praktykę konstytucyjną, jednakże zarazem pozostają w napięciu z istniejącymi, choć niewysłowionymi wprost, konwencjami konstytucyjnymi określającymi funkcjonowanie systemu rządów" (Tushnet 2004: 523). ...
... Przez ostatnie z pojęć Tushnet rozumie: zachowania (działania, zaniechania, czynności) partii politycznych, prezydenta, parlamentu lub sądów, które "bez wątpienia mieszczą się w graniach wyznaczonych przez obowiązujące doktryny i praktykę konstytucyjną, jednakże zarazem pozostają w napięciu z istniejącymi, choć niewysłowionymi wprost, konwencjami konstytucyjnymi określającymi funkcjonowanie systemu rządów" (Tushnet 2004: 523). Podjęcie takich zachowań przez aktorów konstytucyjnych może być sygnałem o ich przekonaniu do zdolności ustanowienia nowych konwencji lub reguł, a nawet zmiany konstytucyjnego porządku prawnego - Tushnet (2004): 523. Rezultat ten nie musi jednak koniecznie wystąpić. ...
Odwołując się do stuletniej historii „Ruchu Prawniczego, Ekonomicznego i Socjologicznego” oraz ponadsiedemdziesięcioletniej tradycji „Państwa i Prawa”, dwóch najbardziej prestiżowych czasopism prawniczych w Polsce, autorzy rozważają pojęcie misji czasopisma naukowego i jej znaczenie w demokratycznym społeczeństwie. Rozważania te osadzone zostały w szczególnym kontekście: rewolucji konstytucyjnych, w trakcie których utrwalone interpretacje konstytucyjne są kwestionowane, a przepisy konstytucyjne – naruszane. Tłem rozważań autorów są zmiany polskiego prawa i praktyki z lat 2015–2020 o znaczeniu konstytucyjnym. Ten okolicznościowy artykuł szkicuje odpowiedź na pytanie, jak czasopisma prawnicze powinny reagować na sytuację „wymazywania” konstytucji (by użyć obrazowej metafory Mirosława Wyrzykowskiego). Aby odpowiedzieć na to pytanie, autorzy odwołują się kolejno do koncepcji: rewolucji konstytucyjnej, kryzysu konstytucyjnego, oraz adaptują pojęcie anomii konstytucyjnej. Artykuł ma w istotnej mierze charakter deskryptywny oraz interpretacyjny, choć jego części mogą służyć dalszym rozważaniom normatywnym.
... Retos del reconocimiento de nuevos pilares Neoconstitucionales.Como se estableció anteriormente, a continuación se revisarán las transformaciones desde el marco de la ciencia jurídica y el papel judicial, frente a la llegada de las nuevas neurotecnologías.La validez de las leyes en torno a los neuroderechos.En este punto es de suma importancia relacionar la idea de Rafael Yuste, sobre la generación de nuevos derechos universales, que generen la protección de la mente humana, desde el desarrollo de los nuevos avances científicos. Para ello, se debe analizar dos temas centrales: el primero es, si dentro el catálogo de los derechos humanos y derechos fundamentales se encuentran regulados los neuroderechos; y en segundo lugar, si esa protección garantiza que a futuro, frente a los nuevos descubrimientos, no generen vacíos jurídicos dentro de un ordenamiento jurídico establecido(Tushnet, 2017).Entonces, para desarrollar el primer punto sobre la validez y la existencia de un marco normativo universal que pueda integrar los neuroderechos al discurso jurídico actual, se propone un caso hipotético para ver su desarrollo. En el año 2035 se construye una nueva consola de juegos, que posee una interfaz neuronal, donde el jugador no necesita utilizar controles físicos, debido a que a través de un chip él puede mover su personaje o avatar, a través de la mente, el problema es que el juego genera una mayor dopamina y justamente una mayor dependencia sobre el juego.En ese mismo sentido, el juego está conectado con la red, y los jugadores han empezado a desarrollar conductas que antes no realizaban; por ejemplo, comprar productos que antes no consumían, pero que ahora consumen de una forma exagerada. ...
El neoconstitucionalismo es una corriente teórica que enfatiza la importancia de la Constitución como fuente fundamental del ordenamiento jurídico; por otro lado, los neuroderechos se refieren al conjunto de derechos relacionados con el cerebro, la mente y la neurociencia. Aunque ambos conceptos tienen implicaciones en el ámbito jurídico y constitucional, el neoconstitucionalismo se centra en la protección de los derechos fundamentales y la interpretación de la Constitución, mientras que los neuroderechos se enfocan en los derechos relacionados con el cerebro y la neurociencia; por ello, esta investigación pretende un acercamiento teórico sobre los nuevos desafíos del Neoconstitucionalismo frente a los Neuroderechos, con el fin de comprender la importancia de estos conceptos dentro del constitucionalismo moderno.
... A variant of this literature has focused on issues of democratic backsliding in the United States and Eastern Europe. Perhaps the most influential has been Levitsky and Ziblatt's How Democracies Die (2018), which notes how this process tends to proceed through the erosion of informal norms-chipping away at the guardrails of the constitution, the norms supporting and ensuring its intended function-by playing what Mark Tushnet (2003) has described as constitutional hardball. Recently, scholars have extended the argument to other continents, where arguably the democratic legacy is weaker. ...
Why have most African countries not achieved greater political liberalization? What explains the lack of progress toward the ideals of liberal democracy across the region? This book advances ongoing debates on democratic backsliding with specific reference to Africa. In examining how incumbent leaders in African countries attempt to contain societal pressures for greater democracy, the chapters explain how governments go beyond the standard tools of manipulation, such as electoral fraud and political violence, to keep democracy from unfolding in their countries. The book emphasizes two distinct strategies that governments frequently use to reinforce their hold on power, but which remain overlooked in conventional analyses; —the legal system and the international system. It—documents how governments employ the law to limit the scope of action among citizens and civil society activists struggling to expand democratic liberties, including the use of constitutional provisions and the courts. The work further demonstrates how governments use their role in international relations to neutralize pressure from external actors, including sovereigntist claims against foreign intervention and selective implementation of donor-promoted policies. While pro-democracy actors can also employ these legal and international strategies to challenge incumbents, in some cases to prevent democratic backsliding, the book shows why and how incumbents have enjoyed institutional advantages when implementing these strategies through the six country case studies of Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
... Tushnet and Bugarič (2021, 148-76) likewise argue that politically motivated alterations in the size of courts are sometimes justified, a conclusion endorsed by a number of scholars in recent years (see also Weill 2021; Keck 2022; Daly, forthcoming). Some of these scholars have framed Supreme Court expansion proposals as a form of "constitutional hardball," a term coined by Tushnet (2004) to indicate political tactics that are not formally unconstitutional but that represent unusually aggressive challenges to existing norms and institutions. The literature on constitutional hardball acknowledges the danger of tit-for-tat escalation but contends that hardball tactics are nevertheless sometimes merited, particularly in response to unrelenting hardball on the part of one's political opponents (Fishkin and Pozen 2018;Pozen 2019). ...
Drawing on Rosalind Dixon and David Landau’s Abusive Constitutional Borrowing: Legal Globalization and the Subversion of Liberal Democracy , this review essay calls attention to three competing metaphors for democratic decline (democratic erosion, democratic backsliding, and abusive constitutionalism) and elaborates their implications for how supporters of liberal democracy might arrest and reverse the decline. Drawing on Richard L. Hasen’s Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—And How to Cure It , Stephen M. Feldman’s Pack the Court: A Defense of Supreme Court Expansion , and the Final Report of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, the essay then turns to two proposals for legal and institutional reforms in the United States that, depending on how one understands the nature of the threat, might be understood either as further indications of (and even contributors to) democratic decline or as “constitutional hardball” in democracy’s defense. It argues that scholarly treatments of democratic decline can help sharpen for citizens and policy makers the key tradeoffs implicated by Supreme Court expansion, restrictions on extremist speech, and other proposed democracy reforms.
... Norm saboteurs pose the most serious challenge to those who seek to defend constitutional democracy and the institutions and norms on which it depends. The class of norm saboteurs includes those who engage in what Mark Tushnet called "constitutional hardball" (Tushnet 2004). They deliberately violate constitutional norms for political advantage. ...
This article explains the nature and constitutional role of norms and explores ways to respond to the challenges they face, which threaten the viability of democracy. Constitutional norms are informal unwritten rules embedded in the normative practices of officials and political leaders. The effect of departures from constitutional norms depends on the seriousness with which participants take responsibility for their practice. The article distinguishes norm infringers, who depart from norms but do not intentionally challenge them; norm entrepreneurs, who challenge the norm in hopes of reforming or replacing it; and norm saboteurs, who seek to deal a deathblow to the norm or the constitutional system of which it is a part. Responses appropriate to each kind of deviation are considered.
... Theoretically, yes. Initiating or intensifying the use of gerrymandering, in a system where it is against pre-constitutional norms yet technically legal and where the other party is engaging in their own unsavoury practices, can be justified as a kind of 'constitutional hardball' (Tushnet, 2004). The costs of one side winning outright in a game of such hardball makes such tactics permissible. ...
Focusing on the contemporary US context, this article examines the ethical quandaries raised by partisan gerrymandering, where constituency boundaries are manipulated for electoral benefit. More specifically, it will examine the ethics of retaliatory gerrymandering. Though gerrymandering cannot be defended as a political practice by any agent who assigns intrinsic value to democracy, it might be justified as a ‘dirty hands’ (DH) practice, where it is all-things-considered justified as a lesser evil that still leaves a moral residue. However, it does not work as a standard DH problem, as the stakes of gerrymandering are usually less extreme and the causes more structural, making the usual language of DH a poor fit. The core moral intuition behind DH, of doing wrong to do right, is still appropriate, but is best understood within the context of retaliation. When others set the terms of the competition to make a practice such as gerrymandering essential for political victory, a proportionate use of these practices might be necessary to compete.
... Sin duda, en el 2019 ocurrió la mayor tormenta política del Perú desde su regreso a la democracia en el 2001. El gobierno y la oposición se involucraron en un tipo de constitutional hardball, como se le denomina en inglés, 3 que pudo resquebrajar seriamente la democracia (Tushnet 2004;Levitsky y Ziblatt 2018). El camino hacia este punto de inflexión política se inició con la elección del gobierno de PPK en el 2016. ...
RESUMEN El presente artículo da cuenta de los acontecimientos del año 2019 centrándose en la grave crisis política que se desató entre el gobierno y el congreso, y su salida institucional. El artículo explica cómo esta crisis escaló en el 2019 de la mano de las escandalosas revelaciones de corrupción que implican gravemente a la mayor parte de la clase política del país. Esta crisis llegó a un punto de inflexión cuando el Presidente Martín Vizcarra disolvió el congreso en setiembre contando con un apoyo mayoritario de la población. Sin embargo, la constitucionalidad no se rompió, el gobierno y el país exhibieron una sorprendente continuidad institucional y se celebraron elecciones para reemplazar a los congresistas disueltos sin mayores sobresaltos. Por un lado, el artículo argumenta que la salida institucional a la crisis política está relacionada al progresivo desprestigio de la clase política perua-na debido a las crecientes revelaciones de corrupción que redujeron un potencial conflicto social con la disolución del congreso. Por otro lado, la debilidad y flexi-bilidad del sistema peruano permitió la aparición de un político independiente, pero afortunadamente, esta vez, con un liderazgo institucionalista en lugar de uno autoritario para ocupar el liderazgo del gobierno. El artículo concluye que este es un resultado contingente y por lo tanto no resuelve problemas estructurales que siguen siendo una fuente de inestabilidad para la democracia en el Perú.
... Mutual toleration essentially means that competing political parties accept one another as legitimate rivals. Forbearance is the opposite of "constitutional hardball" as defined by Mark Tushnet: playing by the rules but pushing against their boundaries (Tushnet 2004). It entails a partisan selfrestraint in using one's institutional prerogatives. ...
O propósito do presente é analisar, sob o contexto da doutrina neoconstitucionalista, como o princípio constitucional da inafastabilidade da jurisdição interage com a democracia brasileira, de forma a averiguar a fundamentalidade de sua existência, bem como seus eventuais requisitos, limites e possibilidades como norma capaz de zelar e propiciar a harmonia social, jurídica, institucional e governamental no País. Para tanto, primeiramente, de modo a compreender o contexto em que se insere o tema, será brevemente analisado o surgimento do neoconstitucionalismo e suas principais nuances no âmbito brasileiro. Em continuidade, analisar-se-ão os principais aspectos que envolvem o princípio da inafastabilidade da jurisdição e de que forma eles interagem com a democracia e o neoconstitucionalismo, verificando-se os diferenciais normativos para utilização do citado princípio no âmbito das relações institucionais entre os Poderes Legislativo, Executivo e Judiciário e nas relações particulares. Neste cenário será abordada a existência constitucional de um direito-dever judicial de decidir ou julgar, conjugando-se ao tema os ensinamentos advindos da teoria da ação processual. Por fim, serão verificados alguns limites, possibilidades e carências normativas que permeiam, balizam e tornam complexa a análise do assunto, diante da indispensabilidade do princípio para a maximização valorativa da Constituição como forma de harmonização social e preservação da harmonia entre os poderes na democracia constitucional brasileira. Lastreado no estudo, numa correta hermenêutica constitucional, chega-se à conclusão de que o princípio constitucional da inafastabilidade da jurisdição, não obstante sua inquestionável indispensabilidade, não possui os mesmos contornos constitucionais de aplicação na seara público-política e na seara privada, e nem se trata de norma revestida de caráter absoluto, capaz de sempre criar um direito-dever de julgar, pois possui limitações constitucionais imprescindíveis para que seja escorreitamente utilizado no ambiente democrático, sob pena de, ao fim, acarretar a violação do próprio Estado Democrático de Direito e o enfraquecimento da densidade normativa do princípio.
O propósito do presente é analisar e compreender, ancoradas na doutrina neoconstitucionalista, como ocorrem, no contexto da democracia brasileira, as interações constitucionais entre os Poderes Legislativo, Executivo e Judiciário, e como pode ser melhorado este relacionamento jurídico-institucional de forma que seja possível efetivar os valores e normas tão caros ao constituinte e à toda a sociedade brasileira, ao mesmo tempo em que será analisado como isso poderia conduzir à harmonia e zelar pela governabilidade constitucional do País. Neste cenário, buscar-se-á ainda discorrer, com esteio na força maximizadora e protetiva da própria fundamentalidade da Constituição, a necessidade de conhecer, compreender e auxiliar a fixação da real dimensão normativa do princípio da inafastabilidade do Poder Judiciário, conjugada à verificação da possibilidade constitucional de existência de um direito e um dever judicial de julgar – ou não julgar – como formas autênticas de preservação da separação de poderes mediante a autocontenção estatal e conformada aos limites da democracia constitucional brasileira.
O propósito do presente é verificar e compreender, com lastro na doutrina constitucionalista, como a cláusula de reserva de plenário, estabelecida no artigo 97 da Lei Magna atua, para então analisar se a existência da mesma é racionalmente compatível com a existência do controle difuso de constitucionalidade, com especial enfoque sobre as interações jurídicas que esta norma estabelece com os princípios constitucionais da igualdade e da segurança jurídica dentro do contexto da democracia brasileira, de forma a testar argumentativa e racionalmente se sua interpretação atual está em conformação e coerência com restante do sistema constitucional engendrado para o controle de constitucionalidade das normas legais. Para tanto será necessário apurar a real dimensão normativa do controle difuso de constitucionalidade, discorrendo-se sobre o ambiente constitucional brasileiro, abordando aspectos da doutrina neoconstitucionalista e dos citados princípios, para então analisar se estes princípios constitucionais atuam ou deveriam atuar, e de que modo, na cláusula de reserva de plenário, de forma que possam conduzir à harmonia e zelar pela governabilidade jurídico-constitucional do País.
An important, but poorly understood issue in modern American politics is the conservative wing of the Republican party's interest in repealing legislation. Although existing work shows that conservative Republican elites focus more on repeals than in past decades, it remains unclear what the public thinks about this governance approach. We examine this issue with a survey experiment asking respondents to evaluate four policy proposals in Congress, holding the “ends” constant but randomizing whether they are achieved by enacting a new law or repealing an existing law. Our results show that conservatives favor repeals as a legislative tool more so than liberals and moderates. We also show that this is the result of ideological, rather than partisan considerations. Our findings shed light on both the modern Republican party's approach to governance and a key issue at the nexus of mass attitudes, ideology, and legislative procedure.
Lon Fuller’s fictional Purple Shirt regime, Victor Orbán’s illiberal democracy in today’s Hungary and the Kaczynski brothers’ recently ended unconstitutional republic of Poland are three examples of a ‘broken democratic polity’ in which many aspects of the rule of law and constitutional democracy have been compromised and cannot be fixed without a qualified majority, even if democratic forces come to power. In this article, I address the question of whether illegal state action of a democratic government is an appropriate means of restoring legitimacy to what I call a ‘broken’ polity. Put differently: Is it morally defensible for a new democratically elected government to override and replace the rules of illiberal constitutional reform in violation of formal legality? If so, under what conditions? I argue that a positive answer to this question is justified if we adopt a neo-republican approach to politics and legitimacy.
This article argues that courts in the United States are comparatively less likely to be captured than those of many other countries and more able to resist an authoritarian populist regime, but also somewhat more likely to facilitate democratic backsliding on their own account. In this way, they potentially could—and arguably already do—provide a relatively rare case of “abusive judicial review” by independent courts. The article also briefly considers whether the US experience provides any insights for the relationship of courts and democratic backsliding in other countries, and especially how the ability of courts to resist capture might be bolstered.
The portrayal of impeachments in textbooks and media often carries with itself several myths and misunderstandings. By analysing, the impeachment’s organic historical development, this chapter seeks to explain the odd and explosive mix of imperfections, pragmatic compromises, and heroic idealism that all impeachments entail. Divided in three sections, the chapter will explain (2.1) the relationship between Parliament and impeachment in Britain, the British Colonies, and modern-day United States, as well as the relationship of impeachment with other historical “ousting mechanisms” such as the deposition of monarchs or the trial of residence in the Spanish America. It explains, moreover, (2.2) the current impact and expectations impeachments inspire in Latin America, particularly in relation to presidentialism. Finally, the last section (2.3) explains how legal scholars and practitioners have dealt with the inflection of law and politics previously and how these discussions may inform a balanced understanding of presidential impeachments.
The following reflections are an attempt in constitutional theory to adress the core elements of the U.S. constitutional crisis. It will first identify structural and normative properties of the U.S. Constitution that may become battlegrounds for adversarial ideas, meanings, logics of appropriateness, and, finally, institutional and constitutional missions, all centering around constitutional liberty. In a second step, it will be shown that institutional theory addresses important links between norms/rules/institutions and actors/citizens that are crucial for a constitution and its potential normative battlegrounds. It is alleged that a constitutional crisis is closely related to incommensurable interpretations of constitutional value choices (e.g., liberty) and the ways actors choose to make their interpretations actionable through the institutional channels of a polity. Constitutional theory, hence, should consider institutionalist findings in order to come to grips with the phenomenon of constitutional crisis. Third, in this light it will be discussed whether the prevailing models of (U.S.) constitutionalism are able to assimilate defects in the crucial relationship between the constitution and actors, especially when it comes to factionalized and polarized meanings and interpretations—which in turn trigger adversarial institutional/constitutional missions and may lead to constitutional wars. Fourth and finally, these reflections are taken together for an outlook on the prospects of constitutional development in the United States and the challenges that lie ahead.
O objetivo geral deste artigo é desenvolver as bases teóricas e normativas de estratégias institucionais que possam contribuir para inibir a prática do constitucionalismo abusivo por emendamento constitucional. Seu objetivo específico é demonstrar a compatibilidade entre os conceitos de miniconstituição e bypass institucional como passo inicial em favor da expectativa indicada pelo objetivo geral. São apresentados os elementos primários de modelo de desenho institucional que imporia à técnica de emendas à Constituição um rito alternativo inspirado no experimentalismo democrático. A hipótese central da pesquisa, sustentada pela literatura que a informa, é de que o emprego desse rito, internamente a esquema de reorganização e multiplicação dos ramos de governo, criaria obstáculos adicionais inibitórios ao emendamento abusivo. Nesse sentido, propõe-se que um desses ramos deva encarregar-se da tarefa de supervisionar, aprovar ou rejeitar a instituição de regimes constitucionais especiais (as miniconstituições), a serem executados na forma de bypasses institucionais. A pesquisa é teórica e explora de forma interpretativa ou qualitativa os conceitos que informam seu objeto. Ainda, é exploratória e exclusivamente bibliográfica. Seus resultados e conclusões são apresentados na forma de proposições normativas, as quais abrem caminho para investigação analítica adicional e convidam teste empírico de suas hipóteses.
Recent political developments worldwide have focused attention on the fraying of political norms, often understood as informal restraints on opportunistic behavior. We present a model to study how norms of restraint interact with institutional checks and balances. In the model, an election determines which party holds office in each period over an infinite horizon. Each period presents the majority party with an opportunity to modify a status quo policy. However, informal norms and formal institutional barriers limit its ability to do so by providing soft and hard constraints to policymaking, respectively. We show that political cooperation can be easier to sustain in political systems with fewer checks and balances, when political norms are sufficiently stringent. Under optimal norms, increasing polarization makes norms easier to uphold, while also reducing welfare. Finally, norms maintained by minority parties are less sustainable, and voter optimal norms require minority concessions to achieve greater electoral competitiveness.
From the moment the global financial crisis broke out, the question of how constitutions respond to such crises has troubled constitutional scholars, especially in the countries most affected by it. 1 Two issues are central: are constitutions impacted by the financial crisis, and do they play a role in addressing it?
Constitutional change has occurred if one of three criteria is met: (a) formal constitutional change ranging from total revisions to modifications and adjustments, (b) informal change brought about by novel judicial interpretations of the constitution or by political practice, and (c) changes in the functions of the constitution affecting constitutional normativity and constitutional faith. 2 Among these, the detection of changes to the ‘small-c’ constitution through informal change is the most challenging. Tracking down such changes requires distinguishing between narratives of rule of law violation and genuine violations, and analysing jurisprudence in light of previous judicial doctrine.
We collected data on individuals’ support for politically motivated “hardball” tactics for U.S. Supreme Court confirmations from three distinct time periods: in the days leading up to the initial confirmation proceedings for Brett Kavanaugh’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court, immediately following the second round of hearings held to address the sexual assault allegations brought by Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh, and following the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett. We investigated whether these high-profile proceedings, following protracted Senate wrangling, affected whether priming respondents to think about past norm violations and partisan gamesmanship affected their support for the use of various confirmation tactics and their assessment of the Supreme Court’s institutional legitimacy. Our results show that the Court is not necessarily in control of public perceptions of the institution. Specifically, drawn-out Senate gamesmanship is impacting the Supreme Court’s institutional standing and individuals tend to dislike norm violations within the confirmation process. However, such concerns can be overwhelmed by ideological or partisan interests in an environment of greater partisan tension and outright conflict. Taken together, our findings suggest that the traditionally static nature of the Court’s base of diffuse support may be on tenuous ground due to its continued politicization at the hands of outside actors.
Resumo Denunciam-se crises constitucionais a todo o momento. Ainda que cada vez mais a capacidade de mobilização popular desse conceito venha diminuindo, em que cada vez menos pessoas se vejam dispostas a ir às ruas em defesa da Constituição em crise, o conceito de crise retém, incontestavelmente, sua importância, tanto retórica como historiográfica. Não obstante, uma teoria das crises constitucionais resta ausente. O presente artigo se propõe a enfrentar essa ausência, interrogando-a tanto na literatura dedicada ao conceito de crises constitucionais quanto questionando o sentido dessa ausência em sua conexão com o conceito de Constituição ele próprio.
This chapter evaluates some of the central theoretical tenets surrounding the centrality of political parties for democratic representation, governability, accountability, avoidance of populism, and democratic consolidation in one case study. The empirical perusal of Peru’s “democracy without parties” during the 2001–2021 period yields an unambiguous conclusion: basic functions of democracy are unfulfilled in the absence of bona fide political parties. The Peruvian empirical record is thus fundamentally congruent with what party politics theory predicts. Defying predictions, however, electoral democracy has survived (albeit by default) and also avoided the perils of radical populism.KeywordsAccountabilityResponsivessRepresentationPopulismDemocracyLegislature
Siyasi aktörlerin, üzerinde uzlaşılmış olan teamülleri ya da anayasa yorumlarını tartışmaya açan ve tartışmanın karşı tarafınca teamül ya da anayasayı ihlal ettiği savunulan davranışlar Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nde “anayasal zorlama” olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Başkanlık sistemi ve çerçeve anayasa ABD’de anayasal zorlama alanlarını arttırmaktadır. Türkiye’de de zaman zaman ortaya “anayasal zorlama” siyaseti çatışmacı bir üsluba taşımaktadır. 2007 Cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimleri sırasında Anayasa’nın 96. maddesine muhalefetçe getirilen yorum ile seçim sürecinin tıkanması ve 2015 yılında yapılan milletvekili genel seçimlerinden sonra hükümetin kurulmayarak seçimlerin yenilenmesi kararı, “anayasal zorlama” örneği olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Her iki örnekte de 2017 öncesi 1982 Anayasası’nın temel ilkelerinden birisi olduğu kabul edilen rasyonelleştirilmiş parlamentarizm ile çelişen yorumlar kabul edilmiştir.
There is a tendency in current constitutional thinking to reduce populism to a single set of universal elements. These theories juxtapose populism with constitutionalism and argue that populism is by definition antithetical to constitutionalism.1 Populism, according to this view, undermines the very substance of constitutional (liberal) democracy.2 By attacking the core elements of constitutional democracy, such as independent courts, free media, civil rights and fair electoral rules, populism by necessity degenerates into one or another form of anti-liberal and authoritarian order.3
In contemporary democracies, backsliding typically occurs through legal machinations. Self-enforcing democracy requires that political parties refrain from exploiting legal opportunities to tilt electoral rules. Using a formal model, we argue that informal norms of mutual forbearance and formal constitutional rules are fundamentally intertwined via a logic of deterrence. By circumscribing how far each party can legally bend the rules, legal bounds create reversion points if mutual forbearance collapses. If legal bounds are symmetric between parties, they deter electoral tilting by making credible each party's threat to punish transgressions by the other. If legal bounds become sufficiently asymmetric, however, the foundations for forbearance crumble. Asymmetries emerge when some groups (a) are more vulnerable than others to legally permissible electoral distortions and (b) favored and disfavored groups sort heavily into parties. We apply this mechanism to explain gerrymandering and voting rights in the United States in the post-Civil Rights era.
Brazil descended into a major political crisis after the 2013 mass demonstrations against electoral corruption and failure to fulfil constitutional obligations related to social and economic rights. This turmoil destabilized the political establishment and severely impacted the behaviour of legal institutions. The use of political mandates and institutional prerogatives, contrary to established social norms and traditional interpretations of the law, became unexceptional. In this article, Operation Car Wash, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, and the process to save the mandate of her successor, President Michel Temer, are analysed as successive examples of ‘constitutional hardball’ that dominated Brazilian political and institutional life, leading the country to a period of ‘constitutional malaise’ or ‘constitutional regression.’ The main objective of the article is to understand the impact of this cycle of institutional retaliations, rooted in the clash between the political and legal establishments (represented by Operation Car Wash), on the stability of Brazilian constitutional democracy.
This article reconstructs Operation Car Wash’s (Operação Lava Jato) political project. Three different moments of the operation are analysed: its conception, its encounter with political and administrative corruption, and its attempt to mobilize popular support to combat political and administrative corruption. The analysis characterizes the operation as a particular manifestation of judicial intervention in the system of representative politics, presenting a critical view of its effects on the balance of power between non-elected and elected officials.
The authors of this timely book, Who Gets What?, harness the expertise from across the social sciences to show how skyrocketing inequality and social dislocation are fracturing the stable political identities and alliances of the postwar era across advanced democracies. Drawing on extensive evidence from the United States and Europe, with a focus especially on the United States, the authors examine how economics and politics are closely entwined. Chapters demonstrate how the new divisions that separate people and places–and fragment political parties–hinder a fairer distribution of resources and opportunities. They show how employment, education, sex and gender, and race and ethnicity affect the way people experience and interpret inequality and economic anxieties. Populist politics have addressed these emerging insecurities by deepening social and political divisions, rather than promoting broad and inclusive policies.
This article reviews the causes, contours and potential consequences of President Donald J. Trump’s 234 appointments to the federal judiciary. The causes will be familiar to political scientists who are fond of reminding people that “elections have consequences” and that the “Supreme Court [and by extension entire federal judiciary] follows the election returns.” The contours of the Trump Judiciary are congruent with Trump’s campaign promise to appoint judges “in the mold of Justice Scalia,” the conservative legal icon who died suddenly in February 2016. We show how Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made good on this promise with the help of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, appointing ideologically conservative, young, and mostly male and white judges to lifetime appointments on the federal bench. In laying out the potential consequences of Trump’s remaking of the federal judiciary, we outline three areas where these judges are likely to make an impact on law and politics in the coming decades: rolling back liberal and progressive victories in the culture wars, likely in more subtle ways that align with Alison Gash’s concept of “below-the-radar” legal change; extending the federal deregulation campaign that began in earnest with the Reagan Administration; and issuing rulings in the areas of voting rights, campaign finance, and redistricting that tip the scales of democracy in favor of Republican electoral outcomes.
In recent years, the most bruising intraparty battles have pitted House leaders against their respective parties’ ideological extremes. While we know much about the resources and procedural powers leaders draw on in these confrontations, we know considerably less about the tactics of their hardline foes. What bargaining strategies do hardline members typically employ when negotiating with party leaders? Why do hardline groups favor some institutional arrangements over others? This paper argues that hardliners’ bargaining strategies and organizational choices are tightly linked and often path dependent. Members first choose how to generate leverage, sometimes resorting to collective defection, but more typically attempting to wrangle a party majority. This choice then dictates the organizational practices that structure their collaboration. But those organizational practices are often sticky, making it difficult for legislators to pivot from one strategy to another.
Incumbents often seek to wield power in ways that are formally legal but informally proscribed. Why do voters endorse these power grabs? Prior literature focuses on polarization. We propose instead that many voters are majoritarian , in that they view popularly elected leaders’ actions as inherently democratic – even when those actions undermine liberal democracy. We find support for this claim in two original survey experiments, arguing that majoritarians’ desire to give wide latitude to elected officials is an important but understudied threat to liberal democracy in the United States.
Responding to the Supreme Court’s empowerment through the 1992 Constitutional Revolution, Israeli policy- and lawmakers repeatedly challenged Israel’s constitutional order and the role of the Court within it as an unwelcomed restrain on executive and legislative powers. The 2015-elected Israeli government has been partially successful in entrenching its partisan vision of a majoritarian state serving the particular interests of the Jewish majority, rather than a state of all of its citizens following universal values. This vision has been enshrined in the Nation State Law, a new chapter of Israel’s fragmented “quasi-constitution” and complemented by the appointment of conservative judges to all levels of the Israel court system, including its Supreme Court. Threatening to change the judicial appointment process and restricting the Supreme Court’s authority to exercise judicial oversight over legislative and executive acts, the government sought to discourage the Court from exercising judicial activism. While the Nation State Law represents a parting from a thicker, normative notion of constitutionalism, the adoption of the proposed Basic Law on Legislation would likely pave the way for an executive unbound.
In modern, policy-heavy democracies, blame games about policy controversies are commonplace. Despite their ubiquity, blame games are notoriously difficult to study. This book elevates them to the place they deserve in the study of politics and public policy. Blame games are microcosms of conflictual politics that yield unique insights into democracies under pressure. Based on an original framework and the comparison of fifteen blame games in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and the US, it exposes the institutionalized forms of conflict management that democracies have developed to manage policy controversies. Whether failed infrastructure projects, food scandals, security issues, or flawed policy reforms, democracies manage policy controversies in an idiosyncratic manner. This book is addressed not only to researchers and students interested in political conflict in the fields of political science, public policy, public administration, and political communication, but to everyone concerned about the functioning of democracy in more conflictual times. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
In modern, policy-heavy democracies, blame games about policy controversies are commonplace. Despite their ubiquity, blame games are notoriously difficult to study. This book elevates them to the place they deserve in the study of politics and public policy. Blame games are microcosms of conflictual politics that yield unique insights into democracies under pressure. Based on an original framework and the comparison of fifteen blame games in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and the US, it exposes the institutionalized forms of conflict management that democracies have developed to manage policy controversies. Whether failed infrastructure projects, food scandals, security issues, or flawed policy reforms, democracies manage policy controversies in an idiosyncratic manner. This book is addressed not only to researchers and students interested in political conflict in the fields of political science, public policy, public administration, and political communication, but to everyone concerned about the functioning of democracy in more conflictual times. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/policy-controversies-and-political-blame-games/7C9B4442984464E74B2E66D140C6B980#fndtn-information
Since the 1980s, congressional parties have traded increasingly narrow majorities, forgoing interparty compromise for unabashedly partisan lawmaking tactics. This includes “constitutional hardball,” in which lawmakers entrench their party position on high stakes votes by bending normal lawmaking procedure. Nevertheless, literature on the topic is new and descriptive (Balkin 2017, Fishkin and Pozen 2018, Pozen 2018), suggesting that hardball occurs briefly, during rare transformative moments (Tushnet 2003, Ackerman 1993, 1998, 2014). I argue that constitutional hardball is a durable, regular feature of congressional struggles over judicial nominations and voting rights. Specifically, I argue that given Article V’s high barriers to amendment, members of Congress unable to pass formal amendments have instead used hardball measures to achieve quasi-constitutional reform on judicial powers and voting rights. To test this claim, I offer case studies on the Enabling Act of 1889, House reapportionment after the 1920 Census, and contemporary Article V amendment proposals.
We live in extraordinary times. In the past year the Supreme Court of the United States has decided an election and installed a president. In the past ten years it has produced fundamental changes in American constitutional law. These two phenomena are related. Understanding the constitutional revolution that we are living through means understanding their connections.
The new occupant of the White House—we will call him “President” after he has successfully prevailed in an election conducted according to acceptable constitutional norms—has taken the oath of office and has begun to govern. But his claim to the presidency is deeply illegitimate. He and the political party that he leads seized power through the confluence of two important events that would have caused widespread outrage and produced vigorous objections from neutral observers if they had occurred in a third world country.
On this two hundredth anniversary of the ascension of John Marshall to the Chief Justiceship of the United States Supreme Court, it is appropriate that we take a revisionist look at some of the landmark decisions of the Court that he presided over for thirty-four years. Political scientists and legal scholars have written a great deal in recent years questioning conventional as-sumptions about the importance of Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Engel v. Vitale. Yet almost nothing has been written about the conse-quences of the "great" Marshall Court decisions. Scholars continue, almost universally, to assume that the old Marshall Court chestnuts---decisions such as Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Dartmouth College v. Woodward---were of enormous significance to the history of the early republic. A closer look at these rulings in their historical context, however, suggests that such assumptions are in need of serious revision. While I do not mean to suggest that these famous Marshall Court decisions were completely inconsequential, the prevalent assumption that they fundamentally shaped the course of American national develop-ment is almost certainly wrong. This Article will reconsider the consequences of three categories of Marshall Court decisions. Part I will examine the most famous Marshall opinion of all, Marbury v. Madison, and will question the importance of its proclamation of the judicial review power. Part II will reevaluate the importance of McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden--decisions that approved extremely broad conceptions of national legislative power. Part III will turn to some of the famous Contract Clause decisions of the Marshall Court---specifically, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Sturges v. Crowninshield, and Green v. Biddle---and will challenge the widespread assumption that they were instrumental to American economic development during the first half of the nineteenth century. Finally, Part IV will consider one way in which the Marshall Court did make a vital contribution to American history: It helped establish the Supreme Court as a significant, if not quite coequal, branch of the national government. This final Part will assess the extent to which Marshall and his colleagues were responsible for the Court's growing institutional stature and the extent to which this development was fortuitous. While I doubt this Article will conclusively resolve any of these issues, my goal is to prompt other scholars to reconsider prevalent assumptions about the importance of canonical Supreme Court rulings generally and the "great" Marshall Court decisions specifically.
In Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, the Court held that Congress can not exercise its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to enact legislation enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment unless Congress first identifies a history and pattern of judicially redressible constitutional violations. Garrett rests on the premise that the Constitution is a legal document that speaks only to courts. This essay criticizes this "juricentric" view of the Constitution, which in the years since City of Boerne v. Flores has come increasingly to shape the Court's Section 5 jurisprudence. We argue that the Constitution is not an exclusively legal document. The Constitution also possesses significant political dimensions, because it expresses the nation's understanding of its defining values and commitments. To interpret the Constitution is therefore to exercise both legal and political authority. The Court must exercise what Brandeis called "statesmanship" in order to mediate the tension between these two forms of authority. The Court's recent Section 5 cases overturn more than a generation of such statesmanship, in which the Court crafted doctrine that gave substantial leeway to the political branches of government to interpret constitutional rights without compromising either judicial review or judicial supremacy. Virtually the same Court that decided Cooper v. Aaron also decided Katzenbach v. Morgan, which deferred to congressional efforts to exercise its power under Section 5. In the period between 1964 and 1997, the Court systematically blurred the relationship between statutory and constitutional standards, so that the Court could simultaneously affirm Section 5 legislation without committing itself to any definitive interpretation of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this way, the Court could encourage the participation of the popular branches of the federal government in the creation of constitutional culture, which in turn profoundly influenced the Court's own understandings of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court's recent Section 5 jurisprudence suppresses this important dialogue between the judiciary and the popular branches of the federal government.