Principles of Constitutional Design

by Donald S. Lutz

• ISBN13: 9780521861687
• ISBN10: 0521861683
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-08-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is written for anyone, anywhere sitting down to write a constitution. The book is designed to be educative for even those not engaged directly in constitutional design but who would like to come to a better understanding of the nature and problems of constitutionalism and its fundamental building blocks - especially popular sovereignty and the separation of powers. Rather than a 'how-to-do-it' book that explains what to do in the sense of where one should end up, it instead explains where to begin - how to go about thinking about constitutions and constitutional design before sitting down to write anything. Still, it is possible, using the detailed indexes found in the book, to determine the level of popular sovereignty one has designed into a proposed constitution and how to balance it with an approximate, appropriate level of separation of powers to enhance long-term stability.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
1 Constitutionalism: An Initial Overview and Introduction	1	(25)
2 Sovereignty	26	(41)
3 Popular Sovereignty	67	(42)
4 The Separation of Powers	109	(36)
5 Analyzing the Interaction between Popular Control and the Separation of Powers in the Amendment Process	145	(38)
6 Matching a Government to a People	183	(26)
7 An Overview of the Constitutional Design Project	209	(12)
8 An Underlying Constitutional Logic: Rational Actors?	221	(30)
Index	251