Democracy, Liberty, and Judicial Review
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-009-66161-4 (ISBN)
Contemporary democratic theory often posits that the will of the majority should resolve fundamental questions regarding rights, rather than the courts. However, this perspective misunderstands the essence of democracy, where the protection of basic liberties by the judiciary is, in fact, integral to democratic governance. Recent Supreme Court decisions have made it a challenging time to defend judicial review, seemingly validating the concerns of its critics. Are the sceptics correct in asserting that an unrepresentative branch should not decide fundamental questions about rights? Alexander Kaufman argues that such a conclusion overlooks the crucial role judicial review has played in modern democracies: dismantling Jim Crow laws, abolishing poll taxes, and striking down numerous other discriminatory laws enacted by elected representatives – laws that erode democratic values. Far from diluting democracy, judicial review is a vital component of it and abandoning this practice would be a concession to its adversaries.
Alexander Kaufman is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Georgia. His research explores the relation of central values of the democratic tradition to issues in egalitarian justice and the basis of democratic legitimacy. He is the author of Rawls's Egalitarianism (Cambridge, 2018) and Welfare in the Kantian State (Oxford, 1999), as well as numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes.
Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. The Majoritarian Critique and the Constitutionalist Response: 1. Majoritarian arguments; 2. Judicial review and the constitutionalist conception of democracy; 3. Bad consequences: consequentialist criticisms of judicial review; Part II. Indirect Attacks on Judicial Review: 4. The failure of originalism as a theory of legal reasoning; 5. An economic theory of law?; Part III. Democracy, Liberty, and Judicial Review: 6. What is democracy?; 7. Representation and democracy: the merger of opposites; 8. Protecting liberties in a democracy; 9. Judicial reasoning in a democracy; References; Index.
| Erscheinungsdatum | 23.12.2025 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | Worked examples or Exercises |
| Verlagsort | Cambridge |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Gewicht | 456 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie |
| Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika | |
| Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht | |
| Recht / Steuern ► Öffentliches Recht | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-009-66161-2 / 1009661612 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-009-66161-4 / 9781009661614 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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