The Original Constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation, was approved in 1781, but within a few years the Articles were replaced by the Constitution of the United States. Approximately seven decades late, the Confederate States of America wrote a constitution using the U.S. Constitution as a model. The three documents are used as a case study on constitutional rules as constraints on government. When compared to the Articles, the effect of adopting the Constitution was to relax constraints on the federal government. The Confederate Constitution added constraints to the U.S. Constitution, while retaining the same basic framework.

Constitutions as constraints: A case study of three american constitutions

The question of "how wide to open the window" to hear citizen feedback and let them influence local politics is highly topical. The authors provide an informative introduction to the prerequisites for collaboration between citizens and public administration. They claim that the re-engineering focus on citizen participation remains too rooted in old paradigmatic thinking. In order to truly engage citizens, one needs to break out of the confines of 18th century thought and explore how participatory democratic theory can provide the foundation for 21st century political design and alter our concepts of democratic governance. The authors focus on two different projects that have demonstrated how administrators and other government officials can engage citizens in agenda-setting, addressing complex policy issues, and facilitating implementation of policies. These models position citizens as "owners" of government, not as "clients" or even partners in making and implementing policies through choices. One method, called Televote, is a form of scientific polling that elicits informed and considered opinions from randomly selected respondents. The other method, a version of face-to-face meetings, was employed in Uniontown, Alabama to engage citizens on an ongoing basis to establish citizen agendas, develop policies, and implement programs. Finally, the authors reflect how electronic town meetings can be used to help build community and reinvigorate democracy.

Public administration for a democratic society: instilling public trust through greater collaboration with citizens

The severely neglected subject of Antifederalism is the focal point of this project. As the framing ideology opposed to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Antifederalism has not been treated with the same historical care as Federalism, the successful and currently operational ideology. This is both an intellectual and ethical mistake that ignores the role that Antifederalism played in procuring the Bill of Rights, and still plays in the sphere of political dissent. The de facto successors to the Revolutionary mentality, Antifederalists took it upon themselves to conclusively secure the American conception of liberty, already wrested from British hands, from a growing threat—those whom they deemed domestic imperialists. Even Thomas Jefferson, architect of the Declaration of Independence, espoused the principles behind Antifederalism, especially when confronted with those of Hamiltonian Federalism. Moreover, Jefferson’s Revolution of 1800, which gave rise to the Democratic-Republicans, consisted of many former Antifederalists. While wholly relevant and increasingly indispensible, the few studies that do examine Antifederalism fall short of finding or acknowledging its lasting significance, owing to supposed internal dissension, socioeconomic in nature. However, Antifederalists featured ideological unanimity in at least one area: opposition to standing armies. This opposition is evident in both the theoretical (why they were against standing armies) and practical (what to do about it) areas. The imperial legacy of hostility, a historical and lived experience for Americans of the time, drove Antifederalists to make their objections to ratification obvious, of which the standing army issue played the most elemental part. Informed and inspired by this lengthy history of distrust for military forces maintained in time of peace, which included their own Revolution, Antifederalists sought to safeguard their liberties from future encroachments, for future generations. By arguing iii that Antifederalists, regardless of region or class, objected to standing armies, this thesis seeks to elevate Antifederalism to its rightful place in the contexts of political history and the encompassing American tale.

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The Bane Of Liberty: Opposition To Standing Armies As The Basis Of Antifederalist Thought

lective security; instead, peacekeeping has become the most frequent and successful operational alternative for the organization. Peacekeeping, which is the placement of interposition forces between conflicting parties (which is different from unarmed observer forces), represents a dramatic break from the collective security tradition embodied in the League of Nations Covenant and the UN Charter. Peacekeeping does not involve any enforcement action; indeed, the peacekeeping troops are not designed to affect the military balance in the area. Furthermore, the deployment of peacekeeping troops is subject to the consent of the host state.

A Permanent UN Peacekeeping Force: An Evaluation:

In the study of American Government, there have been few ideas more persistent or provocative than the notion that the Constitution was designed to restrict governmental responsiveness. At least since Beard, critics of the American system have argued that widely supported progressive policies are thwarted by the institutional features of Madisonian democracy. Since progressive policies include efforts to make income distribution more equal, advocates of "participative" or "expansive" democracy naturally hypothesize that greater institutional responsiveness will lead to greater social and economic equality. It is argued here that this empirical question cannot be constructively addressed within the conceptual frameworks of either the progressive adherents of such reforms or of most established rational choice perspectives. I construct a model to indicate how the effect of institutional responsiveness on equality depends on the distribution across classes of political participation, the differences between ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/449063.pdf

Equality and Responsive Institutions: Elements of a General Model

A veritable feast of 1,500 quotes from more than 1,000 Supreme Court decisions, this is the first such reference devoted solely to the Supreme Court. Dating from the beginning of the Republic to the present, these excerpts provide a powerful historical overview of the mission and majesty of the Supreme Court. They are topically arranged and cover the legislative, judicial, and executive branches states' rights due process free speech equal rights and freedom of religion. Each entry features the quote -- especially chosen for its profound, compelling, and inspirational nature the name of the case, primary citation, year, and author and the kind of decision (dissenting, concurring, or opinion of the Court).

Kenneth M. Dolbeare

Papers

The Case against the Constitution : from the antifederalists to the present

The Case Against the Constitution

The Case against the Constitution: From Federalists to the Present.