Kelsen's Theory of Law

1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Janzen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Will ◽  
Hans Kelsen ◽  
Last Stage ◽  
Theory Of Law

Professor Hans Kelsen is the leading exponent of the “pure” theory of law, which is attracting a great deal of attention abroad but as yet has received scant notice in the United States. His theory marks the culmination of the tendency toward a strictly legal theory, represented in the writings of K. F. von Gerber, Paul Laband, and Georg Jellinek. This movement aims to eliminate all purely metaphysical postulates—such as the natural law concepts—from legal theory, as well as to free it from the political tint which it so often manifests. It also endeavors to separate the validity of law from dependence on any personal authority.This attempt to “depersonalize” law is the last stage of a development that began with the passing of absolutism. At that time, ideas of a “general will” and of popular sovereignty—attended by a demand for “a government of laws and not of men” and by the introduction of the principle of separation of powers—made their appearance, only to be supplanted, more recently, by the concept of the Rechtsstaat.

Introduction The Birth and Growth of Judicial Review in the Civil Law World

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom

This book is about the stunning birth and growth of judicial review in the civil law world, since 1945. In Volume I of this two-volume series, I showed that judicial review was born and grew in common law G-20 constitutional democracies and in Israel primarily: (1) when there is a need for a federalism or a separation of powers umpire, (2) when there is a rights from wrongs dynamic, (3) when there is borrowing, and (4) when the political structure of a country’s institutions leaves space within which the judiciary can operate. The countries discussed in Volume I were the following: (1) the United States, (2) Canada, (3) Australia, (4) India, (5) Israel, (6) South Africa, and (7) the United Kingdom....

The United States and Canada

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
Institutional Differences

This edited volume compares the political systems of the United States and Canada, focusing on the effects of political institutions, and their interaction with political values and other factors, in policymaking. It explores the differences between the American presidential (or separation-of-powers) system and the Canadian parliamentary system. It also considers institutional differences such as federalism, bureaucratic leadership, and judicial definitions of citizens’ rights. It deals mainly with the period from the mid-20th century to the present but also discusses recent developments—especially the Trump presidency. The first section addresses political culture and institutions and considers political values, party and electoral systems, executive leadership and the legislative process, bureaucracy and civil service influence, and federalism. The second section addresses policymaking and outcomes, including economic policy, environmental policy, morality issues, social policy, managing diversity, and selected societal outcomes. The conclusion discusses prospects and challenges for both political systems and finds that policy differences between the two countries have diverse causes—from geography and demography, to political values, to institutional structures. The effects of institutions are often crucial, but they depend heavily on interactions with other political circumstances. Even modest, incremental change in the electoral strength or ideological tendencies of the political parties can transform institutional performance. Thus, Canada’s historic center-left moderation may be on the brink of giving way to wider ideological fluctuation and the U.S. political system was increasingly dysfunctional, even before the election of Donald Trump as president led to chaos in policymaking and the threat of severe constitutional crisis.

Comment: The Separation of Powers in 1867

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Ajzenstat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Mixed Constitution

Philip Resnick argues that Montesquieu is seminal for an understanding of Canadian institutions. We find in nineteenth-century Canada, he says, not Montesquieu's separation of powers doctrine, so influential in the United States, but his teaching about the mixed constitution, that is, government by a combination of monarchic, aristocratic and democratic institutions. He argues that this influence shows in such typical features of our political culture as acceptance of hierarchical patterns, deference to authority and so on; these are reflections of the “disdain for democratic excesses” inherent in the mixed constitution. He then goes on to suggest that we have grown out of the mixed constitution in the twentieth century, but that as a result of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms relations between the political and judicial powers in Canada have so come to resemble the American that we are justified in saying that Canada in this one respect is now characterized by the separation of powers. We have moved from the Montesquieu of the mixed constitution to the Montesquieu of the separation of powers.

Social Construction and System in Legal Theory: A Response to Professor Preuss

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 516-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl E. Klare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Current Emphasis

Preuss' paper significantly advances the critical theory of law. As a side benefit, he provides English-speakers with an excellent introduction to the work of two leading West German participants in the debate, Jürgen Habermas and Gunther Teubner. Preuss' paper reveals considerable common ground between critical legal theorists in Germany and the United States, but also important differences of perspective and concern. I suspect that many American legal critics will think that Preuss' criticisms of Habermas and Teubner do not go far enough, that his criticisms raise a fundamental challenge to the current emphasis on structure and system in the German debate. In any event, Preuss' paper suggests the usefulness of a greater German “reception” of the American emphasis on agency and social construction. No doubt American legal criticism would likewise be enriched by entering into a more sustained dialogue with structuralist and systems theory.

Falsehoods Not Intended to Deceive: Popular Sovereignty and Higher Law

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-31
Author(s):  
Arthur Goldhammer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
Richard Henry Dana ◽  
Democracy In America ◽  
Higher Law

“Any discussion of the political laws of the United States has to begin with the dogma of popular sovereignty,” Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America.1 But what meaning does the phrase “popular soverignty” hace in practice as opposed to dogma? perhaps it has no pragmatic meaning at all and is merely, as Richard Henry Dana suggested, part of “the metaphysics of popular government.”2 For enlightenment on these questions, one may turn to a series of lectures on “The Living Constitution” delivered by the eminent legal scholar Bruce Ackerman at Harvard Law School in 2006.3

The Judicial Veto and Political Democracy

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 700-709
Author(s):  
Blaine F. Moore
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Democracy ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
Political Principle ◽  
The One

Since the United States has theoretically no police power, and since the federal Constitution is essentially a political document, the national judiciary must in the main use political clauses of the organic law as the basis for nullifying statutes. While clauses of this nature are thus frequently made to serve as a basis for the decisions, the great majority of statutes nullified by the United States supreme court have pertained in fact to economic and social rather than political matters. While the court has nullified in all about thirty-three federal statutes, the scope of this discussion will permit of a summary only of the more important statutes which have directly affected political questions.The political principle of separation of powers has afforded the basis for the nullification of seven federal statutes. All these decisions have, however, affected the power and jurisdiction of the court itself; and in every jurisdictional case, with but one unimportant exception, the court has refused to accept authority which congress attempted to bestow upon it.While the court has thus almost uniformly limited its authority in the jurisdictional cases, in one instance the principle promulgated was most momentous—the one laid down in Marbury vs. Madison.

Having Their Say, Leaving Their Mark

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Adolphus G. Belk ◽  
Robert C. Smith ◽  
Sherri L. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Adverse Conditions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Independent Organization

In general, the founders of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists were “movement people.” Powerful agents of socialization such as the uprisings of the 1960s molded them into scholars with tremendous resolve to tackle systemic inequalities in the political science discipline. In forming NCOBPS as an independent organization, many sought to develop a Black perspective in political science to push the boundaries of knowledge and to use that scholarship to ameliorate the adverse conditions confronting Black people in the United States and around the globe. This paper utilizes historical documents, speeches, interviews, and other scholarly works to detail the lasting contributions of the founders and Black political scientists to the discipline, paying particular attention to their scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and civic engagement. It finds that while political science is much improved as a result of their efforts, there is still work to do if their goals are to be achieved.

“Christians Love the Jews!” The Development of American Philo-Semitism, 1790-1860

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Whalen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Early National Period ◽  
Early National ◽  
Social Views ◽  
British Research

Philo-Semitism is America's enduring contribution to the long, troubled, often murderous dealings of Christians with Jews. Its origins are English, and it drew continuously on two centuries of British research into biblical prophecy from the seventeenth Century onward. Philo-Semitism was, however, soon “domesticated” and adapted to the political and theological climate of America after independence. As a result, it changed as America changed. In the early national period, religious literature abounded that foresaw the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Israel as the ordained task of the millennial nation—the United States. This scenario was, allowing for exceptions, socially and theologically optimistic and politically liberal, as befit the ethos of a revolutionary era. By the eve of Civil War, however, countless evangelicals cleaved to a darker vision of Christ's return in blood and upheaval. They disparaged liberal social views and remained loyal to an Augustinian theology that others modified or abandoned.

Challenges of the parliamentary system in Iraq after 2003

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Emad Wakaa Ajil
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Long Time

Iraq is one of the most Arab countries where the system of government has undergone major political transformations and violent events since the emergence of the modern Iraqi state in 1921 and up to the present. It began with the monarchy and the transformation of the regime into the republican system in 1958. In the republican system, Continued until 2003, and after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, the regime changed from presidential to parliamentary system, and the parliamentary experience is a modern experience for Iraq, as he lived for a long time without parliamentary experience, what existed before 2003, can not be a parliamentary experience , The experience righteousness The study of the parliamentary system in particular and the political process in general has not been easy, because it is a complex and complex process that concerns the political system and its internal and external environment, both of which are influential in the political system and thus on the political process as a whole, After the US occupation of Iraq, the United States intervened to establish a permanent constitution for the country. Despite all the circumstances accompanying the drafting of the constitution, it is the first constitution to be drafted by an elected Constituent Assembly. The Iraqi Constitution adopted the parliamentary system of government and approved the principle of flexible separation of powers in order to achieve cooperation and balance between the authorities.

Menelaah Lebih Dekat “Post Factual/Post Truth Politics, Studi Kasus Brexit” (Analsis Resensi Media)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eko Wahyono ◽  
Rizka Amalia ◽  
Ikma Citra Ranteallo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

This research further examines the video entitled “what is the truth about post-factual politics?” about the case in the United States related to Trump and in the UK related to Brexit. The phenomenon of Post truth/post factual also occurs in Indonesia as seen in the political struggle experienced by Ahok in the governor election (DKI Jakarta). Through Michel Foucault's approach to post truth with assertive logic, the mass media is constructed for the interested parties and ignores the real reality. The conclusion of this study indicates that new media was able to spread various discourses ranging from influencing the way of thoughts, behavior of society to the ideology adopted by a society.Keywords: Post factual, post truth, new media

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document