What If the American Political System Were Different?

by Levine,Herbert M.

• ISBN13: 9781563240096
• ISBN10: 1563240092
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-02-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Introduction
What If There Were No Written Constitution and Bill of Rights?	p. 3
What is a constitution?	p. 3
A brief tour of the United States Constitution	p. 7
What if we had no written constitution?	p. 10
Conclusion	p. 19
Sources and suggested readings	p. 20
What If There Were a Unitary Rather Than a Federal System?	p. 23
Federal and unitary systems	p. 23
The American federal system	p. 24
Truly United States: An American Unitary System	p. 27
Summary and conclusion	p. 42
Sources and suggested readings	p. 44
What If There Were Three Major Parties?	p. 45
Political parties in America	p. 46
Constraints on third parties	p. 48
A third-party breakthrough	p. 50
Alternative views	p. 68
Notes	p. 69
Sources and suggested readings	p. 71
What If There Were No Television?	p. 73
Political behavior	p. 75
Governmental institutions	p. 83
Public policy	p. 87
Conclusion	p. 92
Sources and suggested readings	p. 93
What If There Were a Parliamentary System?	p. 95
The Westminster model	p. 97
The political process	p. 106
Public policy	p. 124
Conclusion	p. 144
Notes	p. 145
Sources and suggested readings	p. 147
What If There Were No Judicial Review?	p. 149
The idea of a written constitution	p. 150
Who decides what the Constitution means?	p. 150
What if there were no judicial review?	p. 154
Conclusion	p. 162
Sources and suggested readings	p. 162
What If There Had Been No Slavery?	p. 165
The condition of African-Americans	p. 165
A brief history of race relations	p. 168
The legacy of slavery	p. 180
An alternative scenario	p. 181
America without slavery	p. 187
Sources and suggested readings	p. 189
What If the 1787 Constitution Had Provided for Equal Rights?	p. 191
The civic order	p. 193
Government	p. 198
The private sector	p. 205
State laws	p. 208
Conclusion	p. 211
Sources and suggested readings	p. 213
What If There Were No Welfare State?	p. 215
Social consequences	p. 216
Political consequences	p. 227
For better or for worse?	p. 237
Notes	p. 239
Sources and suggested readings	p. 242
What If There Had Been No Cold War?	p. 243
Soviet-U.S. relations, 1917-1945	p. 243
The cold war	p. 246
The impact of the cold war	p. 249
Conclusion	p. 266
Sources and suggested readings	p. 267
Index	p. 269
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