Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> American Government - Judicial Branch

Cosmopolitan thinkers challenge the widely held belief that we owe more to our co-citizens than to those in other countries. This book offers a moral argument for world government, claiming that not only do we have strong obligations to people elsewhere, but that accountable integration among nation-states will help ensure that all persons can lead a decent life.

Cabrera considers both the views of those political philosophers who say we have much stronger obligations to help our co-citizens than foreigners and...

This book examines the political evolution of the judiciary - a usually overlooked political actor - and its capacity to contribute to the process of democratic consolidation in Latin America during the 1990s. Calleros analyzes twelve countries in order to assess the independence, impartiality, political strength and efficiency of the judicial branch. The picture that emerges - with the one exception of Costa Rica - is the persistence of weak judicial systems, unable in practice to check other branches of government, including the executive and the military, while not quite effective in...

The role of the United States Supreme Court has been deeply controversial throughout American history. Should the Court undertake the task of guarding a wide variety of controversial and often unenumerated rights? Or should it confine itself to enforcing specific constitutional provisions, leaving other issues (even those of rights) to the democratic process?

That Eminent Tribunal brings together a distinguished group of legal scholars and political scientists who argue that the Court's power has exceeded its appropriate bounds, and that sound republican principles...

Kahn contends that the dominant view of the Supreme Court as just another political institution is incorrect. That view depicts an unprincipled court wavering before external politics and public...

Franck challenges three propositions central to current debates over the...

As the authors remind us, since the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal trial judges have been politically appointed, a process frequently the object of partisan scorn. Marshall's famous Marbury v. Madison case was triggered by the highly politicized appointment of William Marbury. FDR tried to protect his...

The contributors--including Pam Brandwein, Howard Gillman, Mark Graber, Ronald Kahn, Tom Keck, Ken Kersch, Wayne Moore, Carol Nackenoff, Julie Novkov, and Mark Tushnet--share an appreciation that the process of constitutional...

Focusing on the problem of time the paradox of time's apparent universality and cultural relativity Carol J. Greenhouse develops an original ethnographic account of our present moment, the much-heralded postmodern condition, which is at the same time a reflexive analysis of ethnography itself. She argues that time is about agency and accountability, and that representations of time are used by institutions of law, politics, and scholarship to selectively refashion popular ideas of agency into paradigms of institutional legitimacy. A Moment's Notice suggests that the problem of...

This book explains how the debate over originalism emerged from the interaction of constitutional theory, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and American political development. Refuting the contention that originalism is a recent concoction of political conservatives like Robert Bork, Johnathan O'Neill asserts that recent appeals to the origin of the Constitution in Supreme Court decisions and commentary, especially by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, continue an established pattern in American history.

Originalism in American Law and Politics is distinguished by its...

The global expansion in judicial power has led to a growing interest in the way judges are chosen. Reform of the judicial selection process is on the political agenda in many countries but the nature of that process differs according to the type of process used - whether a career judiciary, an elected judiciary (direct and indirect), appointment by the executive, or a hybrid system.

The main aim of this volume is to analyse common issues arising from increasing judicial power in the context of different political and legal systems, including those in North America, Africa, Europe,...

"A fascinating book. In clear and forceful prose, Becoming Justice Blackmun tells a judicial Horatio Alger story and a tale of a remarkable transformation . . . A page-turner."--The New York Times Book Review
In this acclaimed biography, Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times draws back the curtain on America's most private branch of government, the Supreme Court. Greenhouse was the first print reporter to have access to the extensive archives of Justice Harry A. Blackmun (1908-99), the man behind numerous landmark Supreme Court decisions, including Roe v....

"Superbly well written . . . a wonderfully informative guide to the Supreme Court both past and present."--David J. Garrow, American History

Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Supreme Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries that have transformed the law--and by extension, our lives. With studies of four crucial conflicts--Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson; post-Civil War justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes; liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas; and conservative stalwarts William H. Rehnquist...

Because the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court tell us what the Constitution means, they can create constitutional change. For quite some time, general readers who have been interested in understanding those changes have not had a concise volume that explores major decisions in which those changes occur. Traditional casebooks used in law schools typically pay scant attention to the historical and political context in which cases are decided, as well as the motives of litigants, the involvement of interest groups, and the justices' concerns with policy outcomes, even though all these...

Few institutions have become as ferociously fought over in democratic politics as the courts. While political criticism of judges in this country goes back to its inception, today's intensely ideological assault is nearly unprecedented.

Spend any amount of time among the writings of contemporary right-wing critics of judicial power, and you are virtually assured of seeing repeated complaints about the -imperial judiciary.- American conservatives contend not only that judicial power has expanded dangerously in recent decades, but that liberal judges now willfully write their policy...