The New Constitutional Order

In his 1996 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton announced that the "age of big government is over." Some Republicans accused him of cynically appropriating their themes, while many Democrats thought he was betraying the principles of the New Deal and the Great Society. Mark Tushnet argues that Clinton was stating an observed fact: the emergence of a new constitutional order in which the aspiration to achieve justice directly through law has been substantially chastened. Tushnet argues that the constitutional arrangements that prevailed in the United States from the 1930s to the 1990s have ended. We are now in a new constitutional order--one characterized by divided government, ideologically organized parties, and subdued constitutional ambition. Contrary to arguments that describe a threatened return to a pre-New Deal constitutional order, however, this book presents evidence that our current regime's animating principle is not the old belief that government cannot solve any problems but rather that government cannot solve any more problems. Tushnet examines the institutional arrangements that support the new constitutional order as well as Supreme Court decisions that reflect it. He also considers recent developments in constitutional scholarship, focusing on the idea of minimalism as appropriate to a regime with chastened ambitions. Tushnet discusses what we know so far about the impact of globalization on domestic constitutional law, particularly in the areas of international human rights and federalism. He concludes with predictions about the type of regulation we can expect from the new order. This is a major new analysis of the constitutional arrangements in the United States. Though it will not be received without controversy, it offers real explanatory and predictive power and provides important insights to both legal theorists and political scientists.

This is the first systematic analysis of the constitutional, legal, economic, social and political systems of Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China. It examines the Basic Law against its historical and socio-economic contexts, including its international and domestic foundations, and the loss and the resumption of sovereignty by China. The author offers a conceptualization of the Basic Law and locates it within China's constitutional, political and legal systems. The book explores the balance as well as the tensions between the autonomy of Hong Kong and the sovereignty of China, which are aggravated by the necessity to accommodate contrasting economic and political systems. It also identifies key legal and political problems that are likely to arise in implementing the Basic Law and suggests an approach to its interpretation. The Basic Law provides a fascinating example of the interaction of widely different traditions of law, politics and economy, and a novel system of autonomy. Its study is therefore of great interest to scholars of comparative law and politics. This new edition covers significant political, constitutional and legal developments since the transfer of sovereignty in July 1997.

What a Confucian constitutional government might look like in China's political future As China continues to transform itself, many assume that the nation will eventually move beyond communism and adopt a Western-style democracy. But could China develop a unique form of government based on its own distinct traditions? Jiang Qing—China's most original, provocative, and controversial Confucian political thinker—says yes. In this book, he sets out a vision for a Confucian constitutional order that offers a compelling alternative to both the status quo in China and to a Western-style liberal democracy. A Confucian Constitutional Order is the most detailed and systematic work on Confucian constitutionalism to date. Jiang argues against the democratic view that the consent of the people is the main source of political legitimacy. Instead, he presents a comprehensive way to achieve humane authority based on three sources of political legitimacy, and he derives and defends a proposal for a tricameral legislature that would best represent the Confucian political ideal. He also puts forward proposals for an institution that would curb the power of parliamentarians and for a symbolic monarch who would embody the historical and transgenerational identity of the state. In the latter section of the book, four leading liberal and socialist Chinese critics—Joseph Chan, Chenyang Li, Wang Shaoguang, and Bai Tongdong—critically evaluate Jiang's theories and Jiang gives detailed responses to their views. A Confucian Constitutional Order provides a new standard for evaluating political progress in China and enriches the dialogue of possibilities available to this rapidly evolving nation. This book will fascinate students and scholars of Chinese politics, and is essential reading for anyone concerned about China's political future.

The Gambia opened a new chapter in her history after 22 years of authoritarian rule under former dictator Yahya Jammeh, heralding the promise of a ‘New Gambia.’ The country is at a critical juncture in its transition from Jammeh’s autocratic rule to a fully-fledged democracy. The ambitious transitional processes include the Truth Reparations and Reconciliation Commission to create an official record of past abuses and crimes, the Constitutional Review Commission to draft a new Constitution, and the permanent National Human Rights Commission to build a human rights culture. The Gambia in transition: Towards a new constitutional order is a diverse collection of timely, rigorous, and insightful essays on human rights, constitutional reform, rule of law and democratic governance. It serves as an important reference for academics, policymakers, researchers, civil society organisations, human rights defenders, learners, and the public at large.

This book offers a multi-discursive analysis of the constitutional foundations for peaceful coexistence, the constitutional background for discontent and the impact of discontent, and the consequences of conflict and revolution on the constitutional order of a democratic society which may lead to its implosion. It explores the capacity of the constitutional order to serve as a reliable framework for peaceful co-existence while allowing for reasonable and legitimate discontent. It outlines the main factors contributing to rising pressure on constitutional order which may produce an implosion of constitutionalism and constitutional democracy as we have come to know it. The collection presents a wide range of views on the ongoing implosion of the liberal-democratic constitutional consensus which predetermined the constitutional axiology, the institutional design, the constitutional mythology and the functioning of the constitutional orders since the last decades of the 20th century. The constitutional perspective is supplemented with perspectives from financial, EU, labour and social security law, administrative law, migration and religious law. Liberal viewpoints encounter radical democratic and critical legal viewpoints. The work thus allows for a plurality of viewpoints, theoretical preferences and thematic discourses offering a pluralist scientific account of the key challenges to peaceful coexistence within the current constitutional framework. The book provides a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics.

"Rudenstine's [book] traces the [Supreme] Court's role in the rise of judicial deference to executive power since the end of World War II. He [posits that], in case after case, going back to the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, the Court has ceded authority in national security matters to the executive branch. Since 9/11, the executive faces even less oversight. According to Rudenstine, this has had a negative impact both on individual rights and on our ability to check executive authority when necessary"--

This path-breaking collection analyzes the dialectic between legal and constitutional innovations intended to inscribe corporate power and market disciplines in world order, and the potential for challenges and alternative frameworks of governance to emerge. It provides a comprehensive approach to neoliberal constitutionalism and regulation and limits to policy autonomy of states, and how this disciplines populations according to the intensifying demands of corporations and market forces in global market civilization. Contributors examine global and local public policy challenges and consider if the ongoing crises of capitalism and world order offer states and societies opportunities to challenge this loss of policy autonomy and potentially to refashion world order. Integrating approaches to governance and world order from both leading and emerging scholars, this is an innovative, indispensable source for policymakers, civil society organizations, professionals and students in law, politics, economics, sociology, philosophy and international relations

This collection celebrates the career of Professor Alan Dashwood, a leading member of the generation of British academics who organised, explained and analysed what we now call European Union law for the benefit of lawyers trained in the common law tradition. It takes as its starting point Professor Dashwood's vivid description of the European Union as a 'constitutional order of states'. He intended that phrase to capture the unique character of the Union. On the one hand, it is a supranational order characterised by its own distinctive institutional dynamics and an unprecedented level of cohesion among, and penetration into, the national legal systems. On the other hand, it remains an organisation of derived powers, the Member States retaining their character as sovereign entities under international law. This theme permeates both the constitutional and the substantive law of the Union. Contributors to the collection include members of the judiciary and distinguished practitioners, officials and academics. They consider the foundations, strengths, implications and shortcomings of this conceptual framework in various fields of EU law and policy. The collection is an essential purchase for anyone interested in the constitutional framework of the contemporary European Union.