Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Constitutions

The term 'militant democracy' was coined by Karl Loewenstein in the 1930s. He argued that attempts to establish democracy in the Weimar Republic failed due to the lack of militancy against subversive movements. The concept of militant democracy was introduced to legal scholarship and constitutional practice so as to provide democracy with legal means to defend itself against the range of possible activities of non-democratic political actors.

This book offers a broad comparative look at the legal concept of militant democracy. It analyses both theoretical and substantive aspects of...

In the contemporary world, there are many democratic states whose minority nations have pushed for constitutional reform, greater autonomy, and asymmetric federalism. Substate national movements within countries such as Spain, Canada, Belgium, and the United Kingdom are heterogeneous: some nationalists advocate independence, others seek an autonomous special status within the state, and yet others often seek greater self-government as a constituent unit of a federation or federal system. What motivates substate nationalists to prioritize one constitutional vision over another is one of the...

Gun control evokes passions equaled by few other subjects. As this book shows, the debate over firearms begins with cultural values and extends into questions of constitutional rights, public health and safety, and politics. Examining its subject through the prism of the Sandy Hook shootings, the book looks at the influence of elected officials, the courts, interest groups, and average citizens in shaping gun-control laws. It shares poll results detailing what the public really thinks about guns and why, and it explains the various components of gun policy and policymaking to show how they...

In this extended essay, Michael Gardiner examines the ideology of the discipline of English Literature in the light of the serious redefining work on England and Englishness that has been conducted in Political Studies in the last decade. He argues that English Literature emerges from the development of the state and that consequently it has suppressed the idea of the nation. His claim is that English Literature has lost its form since its methodology and canonicity depended so heavily on a constitutional form which can no longer be defended.

He calls upon those working in English...

"This is an interesting and timely collection of studies of an important document that is all too often neglected by scholars of other countries and traditions." - Lynn Hunt, UCLA

"Writing Democracy is a marvelous study of textual practices connected to the use of the Norwegian constitution and is thus situated in the engine room of modern Western style democracy." - Peter Hervik, Aalborg University

The Norwegian Constitution is the oldest functioning constitution in Europe. Its bicentenary in 2014 has inspired the analyses in this volume, where contributors focus on the Constitution...

Of all the written portraits of the delegates who attended the Federal Convention of 1787, few are as complete and compelling as those penned by William Pierce Jr. (1753 89), one of four delegates from Georgia. While at the convention or shortly thereafter, Pierce produced character sketches of fifty-three of the fifty-five delegates. Although widely quoted and cited, the sketches until now have never been analyzed or annotated in detail. John R. Vile s study offers new insights into the workings of the convention and the character and roles of its delegates, as well as Pierce s...

Gun ownership rights are treated as sacred in America, but what happens when dissenters moved beyond firearm possession into the realm of high explosives? How should the state react? Ann Larabee's The Wrong Hands, a remarkable history of do-it-yourself weapons manuals from the late nineteenth century to the recent Boston Marathon bombing, traces how efforts to ferret out radicals willing to employ ever-more...