Constitution

About: Constitution is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 37828 publications have been published within this topic receiving 435603 citations.

Ubuntu and the law in South Africa

Abstract: The new constitutional dispensation, like the idea of freedom in South Africa, is also not free of scepticism. Many a time when crime and criminal activity are rife, sceptics would lament the absence of ubuntu in society and attribute this absence to what they view as the permissiveness which is said to have been brought about by the Constitution with its entrenched Bill of Rights. Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity and (attempt to) demonstrate the irony that the absence of the values of ubuntu in society that people often lament about and attribute to the existence of the Constitution with its demands for respect for human rights when crime becomes rife, are the very same values that the Constitution in general and the Bill of Rights in particular aim to inculcate in our society. Secondly, against the background of the call for an African renaissance that has now become topical globally, I would like to demonstrate the potential that traditional African values of ubuntu have for influencing the development of a new South African law and jurisprudence. The concept ubuntu, like many African concepts, is not easily definable. In an attempt to define it, the concept has generally been described as a world-view of African societies and a determining factor in the formation of perceptions which influence social conduct. It has also been described as a philosophy of life. Much as South Africa is a multicultural society, indigenous law has not featured in the mainstream of South African jurisprudence. Without a doubt, some aspects or values of ubuntu are universally inherent to South Africa’s multi cultures. The values of ubuntu are therefore an integral part of that value system which had been established by the Interim Constitution. The founding values of the democracy established by this new Constitution arguably coincide with some key values of ubuntu(ism). Ubuntu(-ism), which is central to age-old African custom and tradition however, abounds with values and ideas which have the potential of shaping not only current indigenous law institutions, but South African jurisprudence as a whole. Ubuntu can therefore become central to a new South African jurisprudence and to the revival of sustainable African values as part of the broader process of the African renaissance.

The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution

Abstract: This book, the last work of an eminent political scientist, is an innovative study of political persuasion during the 1787-88 campaign to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Employing historical and rational choice analysis to examine the rhetoric and strategic maneuvers the victorious Federalists used, William H. Riker develops new tools and approaches to advance the science of political campaigns.

The constitution of the home: Towards a research agenda

Abstract: The home has been a neglected research area in housing studies. This paper represents one preliminary attempt to explore the role of the home in contemporary British society. Key concerns include class and social relations, the sociology of consumption and the home as a locale.

Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State

Abstract: Foreword Chapter 1. Constituent Power: The Concept of a CrisisOn the Juridical Concept of Constituent Power Absolute Procedure, Constitution, Revolution From Structure to the SubjectChapter 2. Virtue and Fortune: The Machiavellian Paradigm The Logic of Time and the Prince's Indecision Democracy as Absolute Government and the Reform of the Renaissance Critical Ontology of the Constituent PrincipleChapter 3. The Atlantic Model and the Theory of CounterpowerMutatio and Anakyclosis Harrington: Constituent Power as Counterpower The Constituent Motor and the Constitutionalist ObstacleChapter 4. Political Emancipation in the American ConstitutionConstituent Power and the "Frontier" of Freedom Homo Politicus and the Republican Machine Crisis of the Event and Inversion of the TendencyChapter 5. The Revolution and the Constitution of LaborRousseau's Enigma and the Time of the Sansculottes The Constitution of Labor To Terminate the RevolutionChapter 6. Communist Desire and the Dialectic RestoredConstituent Power in Revolutionary Materialism Lenin and the Soviets: The Institutional Compromise Socialism and EnterpriseChapter 7. The Constitution of Strength"Multitudo et Potentia": The Problem Constitutive Disutopia Beyond ModernityNotes Index

The presidential power of unilateral action

Abstract: In this article we highlight a formal basis for presidential power that has gone largely unappreciated to this point, but has become so pivotal to presidential leadership and so central to an understanding of presidential power that it virtually defines what is distinctively modern about the modern presidency. This is the president’s formal capacity to act unilaterally and thus to make law on his own. Our central purpose is to set out a theory of this aspect of presidential power. We argue that the president’s powers of unilateral action are a force in American politics precisely because they are not specified in the Constitution. They derive their strength and resilience from the ambiguity of the contract. We also argue that presidents have incentives to push this ambiguity relentlessly to expand their own powers—and that, for reasons rooted in the nature of their institutions, neither Congress nor the courts are likely to stop them. We are currently in the midst of a research project to collect comprehensive data for testing this theory—data on what presidents have done, as well as on how Congress and the courts have responded. Here we provide a brief history of unilateral action, with special attention to the themes of our theoretical argument. We also make use of some early data to emerge from our project. For now it appears that the theory is well supported by the available evidence. This is a work in progress, however, and more is clearly needed before definitive conclusions can be justified. A few observations about politics are so widely accepted that virtually all political scientists have committed them to memory. One of these is Richard Neustadt’s (1960) famous dictum, “Presidential power is the power to persuade,” which expresses, in shorthand form, his view that the powers of the modern American presidency are rooted in the personal qualities of the individual occupying the office—in his skills, his temperament, and his experience. This notion of the personal presidency dominated the field for decades, but its influence is on the decline. The main reason is that it seems increasingly out of sync with the facts. The personal presidency became a popular theoretical notion just as the American presidency was experiencing tremendous growth c