Balkinization   |
Balkinization
Balkinization Symposiums: A Continuing List                                                                E-mail: Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu David Luban david.luban at gmail.com Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu Compendium of posts on Hobby Lobby and related cases The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, and OLC The Anti-Torture Memos (arranged by topic) Recent Posts George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad: Who is the more dictatorial?
|
Saturday, October 27, 2007
George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad: Who is the more dictatorial?
Sandy Levinson
Much of the current "debate" regarding Iran is being driven by the demonization of that country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad. He may well be an nusually unattractive persion who fully deserved the verbal assault delivered on him by Columbia President Lee Bollinger. But consider the fact that he is fact far less powerful in his country than, say, George W. Bush is in ours. In a February interview with George Stephanopolous, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke as follows concerning the possibility of a reversal of policy by They [i.e., Iranian leadership] need to stop and then we can come to the table and we can talk about how to move forward. But of course, if you just read the press and you see the criticism of President Ahmadi-Nejad by people inside Ahmadi-Nejad said that the last Security Council resolution was just a scrap of paper. Well, it turns out that other people in the Iranian leadership don't think so. They think a Chapter 7, 15-0 resolution against Secretary Rice fully recognizes that President Ahmadi-Nejad, whatever his many failings, is not a dictator. Indeed, this is set out quite clearly in a web site of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which I assume cannot be dismissed as a distorted source of information on this issue: Contrast this to our own situation in the United States, where we have a fundamentally unaccountable Commander-in-Chief who, backed up by his equally unaccountable Vice President, threatens to unleash war on Iran without, so far as one can tell, authorization from Congress or, for that matter, serious consultation with Congress. Obviously, I am bitterly critical of George W. Bush, under whose administration we must suffer for another 451 days. But, frankly, I'm not all that thrilled by the realization that Bush's successor, even if far more acceptable to me, will be able equally to make unilateral decisions of peace and war, life and death. Perhaps there was a lot to be said for our going to war against Serbia, but is there much to be said for President Clinton's be able to do so without congressional authorization. One might, of course, believe that the 1787 Constitution was not meant to allow such de facto unapproved "declarations of war," but this "textual" argument has, for most sophisticates, has been dumped into the "dustbin of history." American presidents just do have war-making powers, and anyone we elect must be perceived as a potential unilateral warrior. Is this something to be proud of?
Comments:
"unusually unattractive person who fully deserved the verbal assault delivered on him by Columbia President Lee Bollinger."
quote Sandy Levinson Is this what this country has sunk to? You invite a President of a country to attend a Q and A at your University and you call him names, and insult him in Bollinger's so called introduction. Has he no civility or was it more important that Bollinger saved his donations from the community for his new expansion plans? He and his performance was a disgrace. I invited you to my "home" I do not insult and degade you. Do you believe as a visiter to Iran would be treated that way? Maybe that's the reason this country is were it is when these people in power act with this degree of insulting behavior and a teacher to beat. Great role model. hal lewis
Hal,
Yes, I agree we should follow the Iranian model of treatment. We should have just arrested Ahmadinejad for "engaging in subversive activities." Do us all a favor and visit Iran, perhaps they will provide you with free (and permanent)accommodations?
Professor Levinson,
This post is grossly unfair and patently silly. Your analysis is correct insofar as you look at the power wielded by Bush/Cheney as compared to Ahmadinejad. But that doesn't get us anywhere. So Bush/Cheney are relatively unchecked in their war powers in your view. It is misleading and artificial to stop the Iranian analysis at Ahmadinejad. Of course Ahmadinejad is somewhat accountable. But, accountable to who? And how accountable is that person/group? To say Ahmadinejad is less dictatorial than Bush/Cheney is a pointless and silly argument if considered in any sort of intellectually honest context.
I second the comment of humblelawstudent. First of all, if the object of your post is to criticize the American political system, I fail to see the point of your comparison to the Iranian system. Is there something about the Iranian system that you think is preferable? If so, what is it?
Second,I don't think that you have any real idea of how much power Ahmadinejad has or doesn't have in Iran. Maybe he is "clearly accountable" to others in Iran today, but this could change. After all, one could say that Stalin was "clearly accountable" to the Politburo in 1928, but it didn't stay that way. These things are hard to figure out in authoritarian regimes. Third, equating the claim of unilateral warmaking authority with being "dictatorial" seems off the mark. I agree that Clinton's decision to attack Serbia without congressional authorization was disturbing and constitutionally problematic, but I wouldn't describe it as an assertion of dictatorial powers. And while Bush undoubtedly believes that he too has the right to start wars without congressional authorization, you may have noticed that he hasn't actually done so yet. With respect to those wars he has started with congressional authorization, he has acknowledged Congress's power to end them through the power of the purse. The other branches have plenty of authority to check executive power. Bush's social security and immigration proposals were rejected by the Congress. The courts have rejected or limited many of his assertions of executive power. There are many other steps that Congress could take to limit Bush's power, but the congressional leadership has decided that it is not in its political interest to do so (or in some cases has lacked the needed supermajority). This may be frustrating, but it hardly amounts to giving Bush dicatorial powers. I suspect that what really bothers you is that Bush himself seems unaware of, or at least unaffected by, the devastating political defeats he has suffered. Maybe this is because he is utterly clueless, maybe it is a clever act, but it does give him a greater ability to shape events than one would think he should have with a 25% approval rating. But it hardly makes him a dictator.
Except, of course, as you point out, Ahmadinejad, while possessing the title of president and some of the aspects of a traditional head of state is not, in fact, the most powerful figure in the Iranian government. Iran has some really interesting, robust democratic institutions, and then a parallel theocratic structure that overrides it. A more fair equivalence would be between the American President and the Iranian Supreme Leader.
Sandy:
Your Bush loathing is making you post things you cannot possibly mean. Iran is a theocratic dictatorship. The fact that Ahmadi-Nejad is the chosen mouthpiece for the dictatorship does not make Iran less than a dictatorship. Your country is the antithesis of a dictatorship. Far from being unaccountable, our President undergoes election more often that your "democratic" Senate and is checked by both of the other branches. Outside of widely supported national security measures, Mr. Bush has not obtained anything of note in Congress since the 2003 tax rate reductions. Meanwhile, the judiciary has reversed a number of his initiatives and Mr. Bush has bowed to each final ruling. Some dictatorship. More like the epitome of democratic gridlock. Finally, there is absolutely no indication we are going to war with Iran. Rather than building up troops on Iran's borders, we are withdrawing troops from Iraq again and our troops in Afghanistan are on the Pakistani border. In stark contrast, the buildup for the Iraq War lasted a year. Paranoia will destroya.
Bart,
"Finally, there is absolutely no indication we are going to war with Iran." How do you explain the $88 million Bush wants us to spend on the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, or MOP. That is a lot of money to borrow from Japan and China for nothing.
I have to assume that the posts above are willfully obtuse. Let's review the context here.
There has been a great deal of discussion about possible war with Iran. Some of that comes from those favoring it: neo-cons who supported the war in Iraq have bluntly called for military action in Iran. Members of the Administration have used what appear to be code words signalling that they favor such an attack. The Administration has, for the first time ever, declared official state agencies of Iran to be terrorist organizations. Congress has passed a resolution which has been criticized as implicitly setting the stage for war with Iran. Now let's talk about why there is such chatter. The reasons are incoherent, as Anonymous Liberal has pointed out here, but one of them is the character of Iran's President. The claim is that (a) he's mentally unstable or says insane things, or something similar; and (b) that we therefore cannot allow "him" to obtain control over Iran's nuclear weapons (which it doesn't have). Given this context, it seems hardly irrelevant to compare the relative ability of the Iranian and American Presidents to take their respective countries to war. Most Americans probably lack any real knowledge of the authority of an Iranian President; they may well assume that it's equal to or greater than ours. The fact that it's less is, in the context of the above "debate", an important fact and one well worth publicizing. Two of the criticisms above are particularly mis-directed. First, the post does NOT equate the ability to take a country to war with "dictatorial powers". What it does do is compare Ahmadinejad's overall power to that of a dictator and correctly report that he is not one. Second, the post nowhere refers to Bush as a dictator. The "rebuttal" of that non-argument is simply straw.
I have no particular to desire to defend Lee Bollinger's decision to make the introduction that he did. I thought that the use of the word "may" was suitably fudgey. In any event, it's certainly not the issue I wished to raise.
I also have no desire to defend the current Iranian regime, which is awful in lots of respects. My point is simply that the regime can in no serious way be reduced to decisions made by the egregious President of that country. (Perhaps they can be reduced to decisions made by other egregious people, of course). In contrast, to a remarkable degree, foreign policy and military decisions in the US can be reduced to the decisions made by our own President. I'd note, incidentally, that we are not above romanticizing the degree of presidential fiat in our system. Thus the famous story about Lincoln putting some issue to a vote in his Cabinet and announcing (something like), "the vote is X against and the President for. The President wins." We'd better have a president with the character and wisdom of Lincoln if we have such a system. Would people feel more comfortable if we replaced "dictatorial" with "autonomous and free from ordinary political accountability"? I'm not sure why the comparison between Bush and Ahmadinejad is "pointless and silly." He is being presented as the latest Hitlerian figure who must be stopped. But if, as a matter of fact, he has relatively little power (far less than that of the US president), then one might ask if the hysteria being generated by the US (and accommodated by Bollinger) justifies the kind of threats being tosssed around by Bush, Cheney, and the new neo-conservative favorite, Giuliani. Is Iran really a more dangerous nation than, say, Pakistan? I don't deny that Congress has all sorts of ability to check the executive in the domestic realm. My concerns are exclusively foreign and military policy, where the practical ability of Congress is at its minimum. Bart may be correct! I.e., it's true that I loathe Bush and, more to the point, fear what he may decide to do without congressional authorization. We are very far from being a theocratic dictatorship, but I genuinely do wonder how much it is true that Bush views himself as an agent of God who is therefore licensed to do whatever he wishes, with regard to Iraq and Iran, secure in his belief that he is on a holy mission. Is one "paranoiac" in having such fears? (I would be much relieved if I thought that the answer were an unequivocal yes.) In any event, I am grateful to all of you for your responses.
Though I'm with Sandy Levinson in spirit, I have to disagree about Congress. Neither Congressional Dems or the center and left in America have figured out that power is muscle, and muscle atrophies if you don't use it. What with low vote turnout(s) and with Congress allowing its power to be disabled by cliches like "support our boys overseas" and "real patriots," we probably have the White House we deserve. We continue to buy the media which feeds executive power. Easily distracted, we haven't focused on the key issue in front of us. Not Iraq, not Iran, not abortion or gay marriage, but the power grab by an administration that's been planning this for decades and which hasn't been backstopped by Congress, no matter the current majority. We've got more Supremes now on the other side, making things more difficult. And, as Glenn Greenwald points out today, we have a huge and increasingly politicized military establishment. Time for us to use our muscle or lose it.
Couldn't somebody do more then use radio free europe for information? The post is as silly and uninformed as the comments. I'm embarrassed for all of you.
And by the way the Assembly of Experts can remove the supreme leader at any time, but it has never happened.
And by the way the Assembly of Experts can remove the supreme leader at any time, but it has never happened.
Never?? Not in the whole 28 years of the Iranian republic? Wow.
And of course, the Congress has the right to remove the President by impeachment, but never has.
Not in 220 years. I guess that more than one Supreme Leader feels safe that his removal is off the table.
MLS:
And while Bush undoubtedly believes that he too has the right to start wars without congressional authorization, you may have noticed that he hasn't actually done so yet. It's certainly arguable whether he did so WRT Iraq. The AUMF there was arguably limited and conditional: The Resolution required President Bush's diplomatic efforts at the U.N. Security Council to "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions." It authorized the United States to use military force to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq." Iraq resolution. With respect to those wars he has started with congressional authorization, he has acknowledged Congress's power to end them through the power of the purse. As long as he's had enough Republicans in Congress to keep that from actually happening. Should they actually shut off funding (and I win the Megabucks lottery; oh happy day!), you might see a different argument. But undecided is whether Congress has the power to stop a war by other means. I say yes ... but it's not looking like any resolution of this question is imminent. I think the notion that Congress may only provide funds or withdraw them (for any purpose, not just wars) to be simplistic, and not at all in accord with over two centuries of establushed law. Congress, while it unarguably has the power of the purse, indisputably has far more powers than just the purse (see, e.g., all of Title 18 of the U.S. Code). Cheers,
"Bart" DePalma:
Iran is a theocratic dictatorship. You misspelled "republic". Which is more than it was when the Shah was (our) dictator. ... The fact that Ahmadi-Nejad is the chosen mouthpiece for the dictatorship does not make Iran less than a dictatorship. Ahmadi-Nejad was elected. He ran against a more centrist candidate. Dubya was pushing for the other candidate. Thanks, but that may well have helped Ahmadi-Nejad win the elections. Some might say that Dubya was "chosen" by his buddies in 2000, FWIW.... Cheers,
Arne- you seriously want to argue about whether the AUMF (that stands for Authorization to Use Military Force) authorized the use of military force? The resolution provides
"AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to— (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." Now it is "arguable" that when Congress gave the President this authority it expected/hoped that he would make more serious efforts to avoid war than he actually did (though, truth be told, the Administration gave Congress little reason to have such an expectation). But to say that it didn't authorize him to use military force seems just silly. As for what Bush may do or say in the future about Congress's authority to end the war, I dont know. I am just pointing out what he has said so far.
MLS:
[quoting the Iraq AUMF (which I also quoted)]: "AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to— (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." Now it is "arguable" that when Congress gave the President this authority it expected/hoped that he would make more serious efforts to avoid war than he actually did (though, truth be told, the Administration gave Congress little reason to have such an expectation). But to say that it didn't authorize him to use military force seems just silly. Glad you say it's "arguable". Because that's what I said. But the resolution doesn't authorise the Deciderator-in-Chief to attack Iraq. It authorises him to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq". But that's hardly a declaration of "war", which is what you'd originally claimed. Whether Congress can delegate even that decision "as [the preznit] determines to be necessary and appropriate" is not even clear; the plenary power to declare war is a non-delegable one. You said: "Now it is "arguable" that when Congress gave the President this authority it expected/hoped that he would make more serious efforts to avoid war than he actually did (though, truth be told, the Administration gave Congress little reason to have such an expectation)." But many people expected that Dubya would work with the U.N. (and the vote was in part supposed to give Dubya some backing in going to the U.N.; that was one of the reasons that Dubya was asking for it), and it was thought, reasonably by many, that Dubya would seek U.N. approval for any subsequent action based on U.N. resolutions. Dubya lied about even that; he said he was going to go get a vote just to get people on record (and assuming that only the cheese-eating surrender monkeys or maybe the pinko commies or both would veto any further action and he could pretend he was just doing the U.N.'s work despite the obstruction of these Terra-ist-loving countries). But when it because apparent that even with arm-twisting, no one wanted his war (the head-count was 5-8 against), he said a big Eff Yoo to the U.N., rescinded his pledge to seek a vote that would have embarrassed him and shown him ofr the trigger-happy chickenhawk he is, and went in anyway. I don't think it an absurd argument at all that this is not what many in Congress intended, and in fact it was contrary to what many in Congress expressed even at the time. I don't think you can fairly say that Congress, in its deliberations, actually voted for war with Iraq. And if they didn't, then they didn't authorise war. Cheers,
Arne- you are confusing two issues. The first is whether the AUMF authorized Bush to use military force. Some people wanted the resolution to have conditions that had to be met before Bush could use military force. But the Administration demanded an unconditional authorization, and that is what the AUMF gave it. Now you could say there is a condition that Bush make the "necessary and appropriate" determination, but that condition is entirely within Bush's control and thus meaningless as an external limitation on his actions. And in any event he made the required determination, so the condition, if you want to call it that, was met.
BTW, if you don't think that the language that you and I quoted constitutes an unconditional authorization, what would it take in your mind to constitute such an authorization? Something like "the President is authorized to use military force against Iraq whenever he feels like it"? The second issue is whether in giving the President this authorization, the Congress, or many members of the Congress, hoped or expected that he would use it more judiciously than he did. That is the issue I referred to as "arguable." (And, incidentally, I never said that Congress had "declared" war). So while many people hoped or expected that Bush would seek another UN resolution, the AUMF does not require him to obtain or even ask for such a resolution as a condition of the authorization. It easily could have done so. In fact, I am fairly certain that this was one of the proposals that was not adopted at the time the AUMF was passed. If the AUMF could plausibly be interpreted as not giving Bush the authority to invade Iraq, don't you think that there would have been a lot of congressional opponents of the war saying so at the time? Do you have evidence of such statements? This is what Nancy Pelosi said on March 7, 2003 to the Council on Foreign Relations: "In the House of Representatives 60 percent of the Democrats voted against the resolution to give the president any and all authority to proceed without a UN resolution to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. So the Democrats there have been on record. Senator Daschle and I spoke out again yesterday I think it’s reported in the press…here today…and certainly in Washington that the president had not made his case. But the Democrats are not a monolith on this issue as you know. Sixty percent in the House…which was a big vote because people didn’t ever think we would get that big a vote against going into Iraq. In the Senate this was a different outcome. But I think even people who voted for or against going…giving the president that authority…wanted the president to go to the UN and to get a resolution. We hear from our own members that they would like to see more visible demonstration of opposition to the war from the Democrats. But that again is…the war…we had the vote…I don’t know…I didn’t see the president’s remarks as I was traveling…this…the vote…the war will happen. Now if the Democrats had spoken out…and I’ll say this…if the Democrats had spoken out more clearly in a unified vote five months ago in opposition to the resolution…if the people had gone onto the street five months ago in these numbers…in our country and throughout the world…I think we might have been in a different place today. But the fact that we didn’t…and because we were very split at that time on it…I think that the president is too far down the road and I don’t think he’s turning back. And that’s why I spoke in my remarks to the rebuilding of Iraq as a reality that we’re going to have to face. I don’t see any way that the president…although he said he has not made a decision…I don’t see any way that the president changes the course of action that we are on unless Saddam Hussein abdicates or is somehow or other removed from power. Absent that, I think it’s a matter of two weeks. It’s a terrible tragedy. For those of us who oppose the war to have not been able to stop it is a disappointment to ourselves. But the fact is…is at that time when it would have made a difference the Democrats were very split on the resolution. All of our candidates for president…except for…well, of those who had a vote…supported going in. Senator Graham did not…he’s the ranking Democrat…well, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He voted no. But our voices were not strong enough at the outcome of that vote. And I think that again…a shame that all of this didn’t happen five months ago. Again, I can’t really tell you that we would not go to war at this time if that had happened. But I think we would have had a better chance of not having had this build-up in the Persian Gulf that there’s no way the president’s going to turn away from." Now if Pelosi thought that the President lacked the authority to go to war, don't you think that she would have said so? So while she makes your point, ie, that many members of Congress, even some who voted for the authorization, wanted Bush to get a UN resolution, she also clearly recognizes that Bush nonetheless has the congressional authorization that he needs to launch the war.
Percy wouldn't notice a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing one of Dobby's hats.
Post a Comment
Agen Judi Online Terpercaya
|
Books by Balkinization Bloggers Linda C. McClain and Aziza Ahmed, The Routledge Companion to Gender and COVID-19 (Routledge, 2024) David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024) Jack M. Balkin, Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation (Yale University Press, 2024) Mark A. Graber, Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (University of Kansas Press, 2023) Jack M. Balkin, What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision - Revised Edition (NYU Press, 2023) Andrew Koppelman, Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) Gerard N. Magliocca, Washington's Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington (Oxford University Press, 2022) Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2022) Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric, Power to the People: Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism (Oxford University Press 2021). Mark Philip Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak, eds., Making the Forever War: Marilyn B. Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). Jack M. Balkin, What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Same-Sex Marriage Decision (Yale University Press, 2020) Frank Pasquale, New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI (Belknap Press, 2020) Jack M. Balkin, The Cycles of Constitutional Time (Oxford University Press, 2020) Mark Tushnet, Taking Back the Constitution: Activist Judges and the Next Age of American Law (Yale University Press 2020). Andrew Koppelman, Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty?: The Unnecessary Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2020) Ezekiel J Emanuel and Abbe R. Gluck, The Trillion Dollar Revolution: How the Affordable Care Act Transformed Politics, Law, and Health Care in America (PublicAffairs, 2020) Linda C. McClain, Who's the Bigot?: Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, Democracy and Dysfunction (University of Chicago Press, 2019) Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Duke University Press 2018) Mark A. Graber, Sanford Levinson, and Mark Tushnet, eds., Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (Oxford University Press 2018) Gerard Magliocca, The Heart of the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights became the Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2018) Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (Peachtree Publishers, 2017) Brian Z. Tamanaha, A Realistic Theory of Law (Cambridge University Press 2017) Sanford Levinson, Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (University Press of Kansas 2016) Sanford Levinson, An Argument Open to All: Reading The Federalist in the 21st Century (Yale University Press 2015) Stephen M. Griffin, Broken Trust: Dysfunctional Government and Constitutional Reform (University Press of Kansas, 2015) Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015) Bruce Ackerman, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2014) Balkinization Symposium on We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution Joseph Fishkin, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity (Oxford University Press, 2014) Mark A. Graber, A New Introduction to American Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2013) John Mikhail, Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls' Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment (Cambridge University Press, 2013) Gerard N. Magliocca, American Founding Son: John Bingham and the Invention of the Fourteenth Amendment (New York University Press, 2013) Stephen M. Griffin, Long Wars and the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 2013) Andrew Koppelman, The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform (Oxford University Press, 2013) James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain, Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (Harvard University Press, 2013) Balkinization Symposium on Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues Andrew Koppelman, Defending American Religious Neutrality (Harvard University Press, 2013) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012) Sanford Levinson, Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (Oxford University Press, 2012) Linda C. McClain and Joanna L. Grossman, Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2012) Mary Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2012) Jack M. Balkin, Living Originalism (Harvard University Press, 2011) Jason Mazzone, Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law (Stanford University Press, 2011) Richard W. Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, First Amendment Stories, (Foundation Press 2011) Jack M. Balkin, Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World (Harvard University Press, 2011) Gerard Magliocca, The Tragedy of William Jennings Bryan: Constitutional Law and the Politics of Backlash (Yale University Press, 2011) Bernard Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (Harvard University Press, 2010) Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2010) Balkinization Symposium on The Decline and Fall of the American Republic Ian Ayres. Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done (Bantam Books, 2010) Mark Tushnet, Why the Constitution Matters (Yale University Press 2010) Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff: Lifecycle Investing: A New, Safe, and Audacious Way to Improve the Performance of Your Retirement Portfolio (Basic Books, 2010) Jack M. Balkin, The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life (2d Edition, Sybil Creek Press 2009) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging (Princeton University Press 2009) Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Barrington Wolff, A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association (Yale University Press 2009) Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, The Constitution in 2020 (Oxford University Press 2009) Heather K. Gerken, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It (Princeton University Press 2009) Mary Dudziak, Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press 2008) David Luban, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge Univ. Press 2007) Ian Ayres, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart (Bantam 2007) Jack M. Balkin, James Grimmelmann, Eddan Katz, Nimrod Kozlovski, Shlomit Wagman and Tal Zarsky, eds., Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment (N.Y.U. Press 2007) Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck, The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (N.Y.U. Press 2006) Andrew Koppelman, Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines (Yale University Press 2006) Brian Tamanaha, Law as a Means to an End (Cambridge University Press 2006) Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (Oxford University Press 2006) Mark Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge University Press 2006) Jack M. Balkin, ed., What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said (N.Y.U. Press 2005) Sanford Levinson, ed., Torture: A Collection (Oxford University Press 2004) Balkin.com homepage Bibliography Conlaw.net Cultural Software Writings Opeds The Information Society Project BrownvBoard.com Useful Links Syllabi and Exams |