2. Federalism

2018 ◽  
pp. 22-35
Author(s):  
David J. Bodenhamer
Keyword(s):  
Classical Theory ◽  
National Government ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Dynamic Economy ◽  
Logical Inconsistency ◽  
The People ◽  
Diverse Society

Federalism, the division of power between state and central governments, was the most novel doctrine to emerge from the Constitutional Convention. ‘Federalism’ explains how it embraced a contradiction, imperium in imperio, a sovereignty within a sovereignty. This logical inconsistency—classical theory assumed that governmental sovereignty was indivisible—could be explained only by another innovation, popular sovereignty, which vested ultimate power in the people. Federalism has proven to be a highly malleable scheme for accommodating the demands of a diverse society and a dynamic economy. What began in 1787 as a partnership of equal governments became a powerful national government two centuries later, with widespread authority to safeguard (or threaten) liberty for its citizens.

The Referendum in the UK’s Constitution: From Parliamentary to Popular Sovereignty?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart G White
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
The People ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

The 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU has led to much questioning of the place of the referendum in the UK’s constitution with a particular emphasis on the status of Parliamentary and popular sovereignty. Some commentary suggests that the UK has shifted from a constitution of Parliamentary sovereignty to one of the popular sovereignty. Drawing on A.V. Dicey’s discussion of the UK constitution in his Introduction to the Law of the Constitution, this article sets out the case that the referendum is the site of a change in the UK’s constitution. However, according to this case, the change is not accurately described as a shift from Parliamentary to popular sovereignty. It is better understood in terms of the emergence of a new constitutional convention which has altered the manner by which Parliament, as the legal sovereign, is kept subordinate to the ‘people’ as the political sovereign. The article offers some preliminary empirical assessment of this case for constitutional change and indicates areas for future research. These include considering the possible influence of democratic constitutionalist thinking in the UK’s use of referendums and the desirability and implications of a full transition to democratic constitutionalism.

A Government Based on Representations

1996 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Hemberger
Keyword(s):  
Early Republic ◽  
National Government ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Popular Politics ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
The People ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The U.S

In the course of the debates over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, no one disputed that the people were sovereign, but how this sovereignty was to be embodied proved quite controversial. The post-Revolutionary generation faced the challenge of creating a republican form of government from an oppositional popular politics. Federalists responded by claiming for their Constitution, and for the national government it created, a monopoly on the legitimate representation of the people. They championed the official over the popular and invoked the idea of the nation to authorize this transfer of authority. It was a transfer that would not go unchallenged, and, as a result, the constitutional politics of the early republic repeatedly posed the question of whether popular sovereignty could survive the transformation of the demos into a nation.

Democracy, or Taming an Unruly Friend

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Sajó ◽  
Renáta Uitz
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
General Will ◽  
The People ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy, with particular emphasis on the creative, disruptive, and destructive force behind constitutions and government: the people. Democracy is inherent in modern constitutionalism. The authority of the constitution derives from people’s sovereignty. If constitutionalism was designed to contain the abuse resulting from absolute sovereign power by setting up arrangements inside government, the democratic exercise of sovereignty emerged as an external constraint on government. This chapter traces the evolution of universal suffrage and considers its consequences, including the perils (and tyranny) of majority rule for a diverse society. It discusses the idea that a sovereign people has a single general will and looks at representative government as a means of balancing popular sovereignty with constitutionalism. It analyses the binding mandate and how it was replaced by the free mandate, along with the referendum as a genuine expression of the will of the people.

Popular Resource Sovereignty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Wenar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Resource Curse ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The People ◽  
Rich Countries

Article 1 of both of the major human rights covenants declares that the people of each country “shall freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources.” This chapter considers what conditions would have to hold for the people of a country to exercise this right—and why public accountability over natural resources is the only realistic solution to the “resource curse,” which makes resource-rich countries more prone to authoritarianism, civil conflict, and large-scale corruption. It also discusses why cosmopolitans, who have often been highly critical of prerogatives of state sovereignty, have good reason to endorse popular sovereignty over natural resources. Those who hope for more cosmopolitan institutions should see strengthening popular resource sovereignty as the most responsible path to achieving their own goals.

A New Hope

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Oklopcic
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

As the final chapter of the book, Chapter 10 confronts the limits of an imagination that is constitutional and constituent, as well as (e)utopian—oriented towards concrete visions of a better life. In doing so, the chapter confronts the role of Square, Triangle, and Circle—which subtly affect the way we think about legal hierarchy, popular sovereignty, and collective self-government. Building on that discussion, the chapter confronts the relationship between circularity, transparency, and iconography of ‘paradoxical’ origins of democratic constitutions. These representations are part of a broader morphology of imaginative obstacles that stand in the way of a more expansive constituent imagination. The second part of the chapter focuses on the most important five—Anathema, Nebula, Utopia, Aporia, and Tabula—and closes with the discussion of Ernst Bloch’s ‘wishful images’ and the ways in which manifold ‘diagrams of hope and purpose’ beyond the people may help make them attractive again.

Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Heller
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Pluralistic World

This 1927 work addresses the paradox of sovereignty, that is, how the sovereign can be both the highest authority and subject to law. Unlike Kelsen and Schmitt who seek to dissolve the paradox, this text sees the tensions that the paradox highlights as an essential part of a society ruled by law. Sovereignty, in the sense of national sovereignty, is often perceived in liberal democracies today as being under threat, or at least “in transition,” as power devolves from nation states to international bodies. This threat to national sovereignty is at the same time considered a threat to a different idea of sovereignty, popular sovereignty—the sovereignty of “the people”—as important decisions seem increasingly to be made by institutions outside of a country’s political system or by elite-dominated institutions within. This text was written in 1927 amidst the very similar tensions of the Weimar Republic. In an exploration of history, constitutional and political theory, and international law, it shows that democrats must defend a legal idea of sovereignty suitable for a pluralistic world.

Political Community in Revolutionary Pennsylvania, 1774-1800

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Owen
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Early American ◽  
The People ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
Popular Mobilization

Political Community in Revolutionary Pennsylvania challenges the ways we understand popular sovereignty in the American Revolution, demonstrating how ordinary citizens wielded significant political power. Previous histories place undue focus on either elite political thought or class analysis; on the contrary, citizens cared most about the establishment of a representative, publicly legitimate political process. Popular activism constrained leaders, creating a system through which governmental actions were made more representative of the will of the community. This book analyzes developments in Pennsylvania from 1774, and the passage of the Intolerable Acts, through to 1800 and the election of Thomas Jefferson. It examines the animating philosophy of the Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776, a “radical manifesto” espousing a vision of popular sovereignty in which government was devolved from the people only where necessary. The legitimacy of governmental institutions rested on their demonstration that they operated through popular consent, expressed in a variety of forms of popular mobilization. This book examines how early Americans interacted with the power structures shaping the world in which they lived, recasting the nature of the American Revolution and illuminating the origins of modern American political practice. It investigates how political mobilization operated inside and outside formal channels of government. Mechanisms of popular mobilization helped a diverse population mediate with governmental institutions, providing the foundation of early American power. Histories that ignore this relationship miss one of the most significant founding characteristics of the United States—the importance of popular politics and democratic practice in the establishment of American government.

Legitimizing Transformation without Calling it Change:Tajdīd, Iṣlāḥ, and Saudi Arabia’s Place in the Contemporary World

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Sean Foley
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Political System ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
The West ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The People ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Oil Revenues

For decades, many scholars have contended that Saudi Arabia is a fixed political system, where a conservative monarchy uses advanced technology, oil revenues, and religion to dominate the people. Such a system is often portrayed as inherently unstable, a seemingly never-ending series of collisions between an unchanging traditional political structure seeking to hold on to power at any cost and a dynamic modernity—a view encapsulated in a phrase expressed at virtually every public discussion of the Kingdom in the West: ‘you must admit that Saudi Arabia must change’. Ironically this phrase confirms what this article argues is a secret to the success of Saudi Arabia in the contemporary era: the ability to legitimize transformation without calling it change. No society is static, including Saudi Arabia. Throughout the Kingdom’s history, the defining social institutions have repeatedly utilized Tajdīd (Revival) and Iṣlāḥ (Reform) to respond to new technologies and the changing expectations of a diverse society. While Muslim scholars are most often entrusted to arbitrate this process, ordinary Saudis use this process to guide their actions in the various social spaces they encounter both at home and abroad. Critically, this process reflects the response of King Abdulaziz and the founders of the third Saudi state in the early twentieth century to the factors that had brought down previous Saudi states in the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Political Theory of Populism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Urbinati
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Democratic Principles

Populism is the name of a global phenomenon whose definitional precariousness is proverbial. It resists generalizations and makes scholars of politics comparativist by necessity, as its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises. A rich body of socio-historical analyses allows us to situate populism within the global phenomenon called democracy, as its ideological core is nourished by the two main entities—the nation and the people—that have fleshed out popular sovereignty in the age of democratization. Populism consists in a transmutation of the democratic principles of the majority and the people in a way that is meant to celebrate one subset of the people as opposed to another, through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it. This may make populism collide with constitutional democracy, even if its main tenets are embedded in the democratic universe of meanings and language. In this article, I illustrate the context-based character of populism and how its cyclical appearances reflect the forms of representative government. I review the main contemporary interpretations of the concept and argue that some basic agreement now exists on populism's rhetorical character and its strategy for achieving power in democratic societies. Finally, I sketch the main characteristics of populism in power and explain how it tends to transform the fundamentals of democracy: the people and the majority, elections, and representation.

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