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Keith E. Whittington

Bio: Keith E. Whittington is an academic researcher from Princeton University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supreme court & Politics. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 120 publications receiving 1627 citations. Previous affiliations of Keith E. Whittington include University Press of Kansas & The Catholic University of America.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For several years now, the Supreme Court has disquieted observers and commentators by reasserting the presence of constitutional limitations on national power resulting from the federal structure of the American political system as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: For several years now, the Supreme Court has disquieted observers and commentators by reasserting the presence of constitutional limitations on national power resulting from the federal structure of the American political system. Although not quite amounting to a revolution in American constitutional law, the recent federalism cases are nonetheless striking. They are, of course, most remarkable because they reverse over fifty years of nearly uninterrupted deference to the national government in matters relating to federalism and the structural limits on the powers of the central government. With the exception of an ill-fated attempt to identify such limits in 1976, under the guidance of then–Associate Justice William Rehnquist, the

36 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three of the most prominent objections to extra-judicial constitutional interpretations and defend judicial supremacy, and suggest that such interpretations should be regarded as more authoritative and deserving of greater deference by the courts.
Abstract: Recent cases such as Boerne, Kimel and Garrett highlight the fact that the most important question regarding judicial supremacy focuses on the proper degree of deference between the branches rather than the possibility of extralegal defiance of the Court. Extrajudicial interpretation of the Constitution has often been criticized as problematic, insufficient and not authoritative. Although it is widely accepted that nonjudicial actors can and do interpret the Constitution, many constitutional theorists hold to a theory of judicial supremacy that argues that the Supreme Court is the ultimate, authoritative interpreter of the Constitution. This paper critically examines three of the most prominent objections to extrajudicial constitutional interpretations, and corollary defenses of judicial supremacy, and finds each inadequate. The three objections are that extrajudicial constitutional interpretation is 1) anarchic, 2) irrational, and 3) tyrannical. Each posits a corresponding virtue of judicial supremacy in terms of 1) the settlement function of the courts, 2) the deliberative function of the courts, and 3) the countermajoritarian function of the courts. The paper offers analytical and empirical responses to these critiques of extrajudicial constitutional interpretation, suggesting reasons why such interpretations should be regarded as more authoritative and deserving of greater deference by the courts. These arguments have implications not only for debates over judicial supremacy per se, but also for the related debate over the proper scope of judicial review.

34 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors re-examine historical presidential challenges to judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation and argue that such challenges are better understood as contextually specific efforts to reconsider the meaning and future of American constitutional traditions and efforts to shift the locus of constitutional debate into a more democratic arena.
Abstract: Political challenges to the judiciary are usually regarded as a threat to the Constitution and judicial independence broadly. This need not be the case, however, and such assumptions may misinterpret American political history and underestimate American constitutionalism. This article reexamines historical presidential challenges to judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation. Rather than being unprincipled attacks on judicial independence or rejections of constitutional values, such challenges are better understood as contextually specific efforts to reconsider the meaning and future of American constitutional traditions and efforts to shift the locus of constitutional debate into a more democratic arena.

28 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2001-Polity
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reexamine historical presidential challenges to the judicial authority to interpret constitutional meaning and argue that such challenges are best regarded as historically specific efforts to reconsider the meaning and future of American constitutional traditions in times of political crisis and constitutional uncertainty.
Abstract: Conflicts between the Supreme Court and the president are usually regarded as grave challenges to the Constitution and a threat to judicial independence. Such claims misrepresent the nature of these presidential challenges, however. In doing so, they paint an unflattering and inaccurate portrait of American politics and underestimate the strength of American constitutionalism. This article reexamines historical presidential challenges to the judicial authority to interpret constitutional meaning. It argues that rather than being unprincipled attacks on judicial independence, such challenges are best regarded as historically specific efforts to reconsider the meaning and future of American constitutional traditions in times of political crisis and constitutional uncertainty.

21 citations


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Book
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: A review of the collected works of John Tate can be found in this paper, where the authors present two volumes of the Abel Prize for number theory, Parts I, II, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre.
Abstract: This is a review of Collected Works of John Tate. Parts I, II, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island, 2016. For several decades it has been clear to the friends and colleagues of John Tate that a “Collected Works” was merited. The award of the Abel Prize to Tate in 2010 added impetus, and finally, in Tate’s ninety-second year we have these two magnificent volumes, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. Beyond Tate’s published articles, they include five unpublished articles and a selection of his letters, most accompanied by Tate’s comments, and a collection of photographs of Tate. For an overview of Tate’s work, the editors refer the reader to [4]. Before discussing the volumes, I describe some of Tate’s work. 1. Hecke L-series and Tate’s thesis Like many budding number theorists, Tate’s favorite theorem when young was Gauss’s law of quadratic reciprocity. When he arrived at Princeton as a graduate student in 1946, he was fortunate to find there the person, Emil Artin, who had discovered the most general reciprocity law, so solving Hilbert’s ninth problem. By 1920, the German school of algebraic number theorists (Hilbert, Weber, . . .) together with its brilliant student Takagi had succeeded in classifying the abelian extensions of a number field K: to each group I of ideal classes in K, there is attached an extension L of K (the class field of I); the group I determines the arithmetic of the extension L/K, and the Galois group of L/K is isomorphic to I. Artin’s contribution was to prove (in 1927) that there is a natural isomorphism from I to the Galois group of L/K. When the base field contains an appropriate root of 1, Artin’s isomorphism gives a reciprocity law, and all possible reciprocity laws arise this way. In the 1930s, Chevalley reworked abelian class field theory. In particular, he replaced “ideals” with his “idèles” which greatly clarified the relation between the local and global aspects of the theory. For his thesis, Artin suggested that Tate do the same for Hecke L-series. When Hecke proved that the abelian L-functions of number fields (generalizations of Dirichlet’s L-functions) have an analytic continuation throughout the plane with a functional equation of the expected type, he saw that his methods applied even to a new kind of L-function, now named after him. Once Tate had developed his harmonic analysis of local fields and of the idèle group, he was able prove analytic continuation and functional equations for all the relevant L-series without Hecke’s complicated theta-formulas. Received by the editors September 5, 2016. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 01A75, 11-06, 14-06. c ©2017 American Mathematical Society

2,014 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: McQueen et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby.
Abstract: Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

1,813 citations

MonographDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three constitutional courts in Asia: Taiwan, Korea and Mongolia, and argue that the design and functioning of constitutional review are largely a function of politics and interests.
Abstract: New democracies around the world have adopted constitutional courts to oversee the operation of democratic politics. Where does judicial power come from, how does it develop in the early stages of democratic liberalization, and what political conditions support its expansion? This book answers these questions through an examination of three constitutional courts in Asia: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. In a region that has traditionally viewed law as a tool of authoritarian rulers, constitutional courts in these three societies are becoming a real constraint on government. In contrast with conventional culturalist accounts, this book argues that the design and functioning of constitutional review are largely a function of politics and interests. Judicial review - the power of judges to rule an act of a legislature or national leader unconstitutional - is a solution to the problem of uncertainty in constitutional design. By providing 'insurance' to prospective electoral losers, judicial review can facilitate democracy.

737 citations