Reveals how the U.S. Supreme Court's presidentialism threatens our democracy and what to do about it. Donald Trump's presidency made many Americans wonder whether our system of checks and balances would prove robust enough to withstand an onslaught from a despotic chief executive. In The Specter of Dictatorship, David Driesen analyzes the chief executive's role in the democratic decline of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey and argues that an insufficiently constrained presidency is one of the most important systemic threats to democracy. Driesen urges the U.S. to learn from the mistakes of these failing democracies. Their experiences suggest, Driesen shows, that the Court must eschew its reliance on and expansion of the "unitary executive theory" recently endorsed by the Court and apply a less deferential approach to presidential authority, invoked to protect national security and combat emergencies, than it has in recent years. Ultimately, Driesen argues that concern about loss of democracy should play a major role in the Court's jurisprudence, because loss of democracy can prove irreversible. As autocracy spreads throughout the world, maintaining our democracy has become an urgent matter.

Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.

In this 2010 book, Roger Masterman examines the dividing lines between the powers of the judicial branch of government and those of the executive and legislative branches in the light of two of the most significant constitutional reforms of recent years: the Human Rights Act (1998) and Constitutional Reform Act (2005). Both statutes have implications for the separation of powers within the United Kingdom constitution. The Human Rights Act brings the judges into much closer proximity with the decisions of political actors than previously permitted by the Wednesbury standard of review and the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, while the Constitutional Reform Act marks the emergence of an institutionally independent judicial branch. Taken together, the two legislative schemes form the backbone of a more comprehensive system of constitutional checks and balances policed by a judicial branch underpinned by the legitimacy of institutional independence.

Judicial independence is generally understood as requiring that judges must be insulated from political life. The central claim of this work is that far from standing apart from the political realm, judicial independence is a product of it. It is defined and protected through interactions between judges and politicians. In short, judicial independence is a political achievement. This is the main conclusion of a three-year research project on the major changes introduced by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, and the consequences for judicial independence and accountability. The authors interviewed over 150 judges, politicians, civil servants and practitioners to understand the day-to-day processes of negotiation and interaction between politicians and judges. They conclude that the greatest threat to judicial independence in future may lie not from politicians actively seeking to undermine the courts, but rather from their increasing disengagement from the justice system and the judiciary.

This classic text, originally published in 1948, is a study of the public administration movement from the viewpoint of political theory and the history of ideas. It seeks to review and analyze the theoretical element in administrative writings and to present the development of the public administration movement as a chapter in the history of American political thought.The objectives of The Administrative State are to assist students of administration to view their subject in historical perspective and to appraise the theoretical content of their literature. It is also hoped that this book may assist students of American culture by illuminating an important development of the first half of the twentieth century. It thus should serve political scientists whose interests lie in the field of public administration or in the study of bureaucracy as a political issue; the public administrator interested in the philosophic background of his service; and the historian who seeks an understanding of major governmental developments.This study, now with a new introduction by public policy and administration scholar Hugh Miller, is based upon the various books, articles, pamphlets, reports, and records that make up the literature of public administration, and documents the political response to the modern world that Graham Wallas named the Great Society. It will be of lasting interest to students of political science, government, and American history.

Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating.

The first study to use Jomo Kenyatta's political biography and presidency as a basis for examining the colonial and postcolonial history of Kenya.

2011 Winner of the Selection for Professional Reading List of the U.S. Marine Corps The judiciary in the United States has been subject in recent years to increasingly vocal, aggressive criticism by media members, activists, and public officials at the federal, state, and local level. This collection probes whether these attacks as well as proposals for reform represent threats to judicial independence or the normal, even healthy, operation of our political system. In addressing this central question, the volume integrates new scholarship, current events, and the perennial concerns of political science and law. The contributors—policy experts, established and emerging scholars, and attorneys—provide varied scholarly viewpoints and assess the issue of judicial independence from the diverging perspectives of Congress, the presidency, and public opinion. Through a diverse range of methodologies, the chapters explore the interactions and tensions among these three interests and the courts and discuss how these conflicts are expressed—and competing interests accommodated. In doing so, they ponder whether the U.S. courts are indeed experiencing anything new and whether anti-judicial rhetoric affords fresh insights. Case studies from Israel, the United Kingdom, and Australia provide a comparative view of judicial controversy in other democratic nations. A unique assessment of the rise of criticism aimed at the judiciary in the United States, The Politics of Judicial Independence is a well-organized and engagingly written text designed especially for students. Instructors of judicial process and judicial policymaking will find the book, along with the materials and resources on its accompanying website, readily adaptable for classroom use.