Constitution

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

Wealth Neutrality and Local Choice in Public Education

Abstract: A series of recent judicial decisions has focused public attention on the issue of local choice in the provision of public education. In Serrano vs. Priest, Rodriguez vs. San Antonio (1971), and similar cases in other states, the lower courts confirmed that education is a responsibility of the state government and held that local expenditures on education may not be a function of the taxable wealth of the local community.1 Although the United States Supreme Court has overturned these decisions in the appeal of Rodriguez vs. San Antonio (1973), the pressure to change the current system remains strong. The Supreme Court majority indicated that its decision reflected the limits of the federal constitutional authority and was not an approval of the status quo in educational finance. Litigation is now likely to shift to challenging the current methods as unconstitutional under state constitutions which, unlike the federal constitution, do deal specifically with education.2 Moreover, fundamental changes in the financing of local education may not require further pressure from the courts; state legislatures may seek to neutralize the effects of local wealth differences even if the current systems are not held to be unconstitutional. These judicial decisions and the ensuing legislative proposals run counter to the general economic view of local government finance. The basic presumption of economic analysis is that, because local governments can select different levels of service and because individuals can choose their area of residence, decentralized finance by local governments allows the provision of public services to reflect the variety of individual preferences for public services.3 Although the level of local spending may be nonoptimal because of intercommunity externalities and because of the method of local budget determination, fiscal decentralization still remains the only alternative to the insuperable problem of determining the optimal level of expenditure on a public service provided by a central government. In effect, autonomous decentralized financing of education provides a quasi market in which households can exercise their diverse preferences by their location decisions. This paper considers the problem of * Professor of economics, Harvard University. I am grateful to Charles Clotfelter for assistance with the statistical analysis, to Stephen Weiss for providing unpublished data on school expenditures, and to the Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation for financial support. I have benefited from discussions of an earlier version in seminars at Harvard, M.I.T., and Berkeley, and from comments by Noel Edelson, Eric Toder, and David Stern. An earlier and more complete discussion of this study was distributed as Harvard Institute of Economic Research paper no. 293, May 1973 (revised July 1973). 1 In Serrano vs. Priest, the landmark case in this area, the plaintiff and the courts were very much influenced by the line of argument and suggested remedies develope(l in John Coons et al. For a further discussion of the legal precedents, see Arthur Wise. 2 Almost immediately after the United States Supreme Court decision in Rodriguez vs. San Antonio, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the current system of local finance violated the New Jersey state constitution. See Wise for a summary of the provisions of other state constitutions. I Charles Tiebout presented a formal analysis of the full efficiency of local government provision of public services under quite special conditions. See Wallace Oates and James Buchanan and Charles Goetz for a further discussion of these issues.

The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community

Abstract: This book, written by one of the leading participants of the debate on a “constitutionalization” of international law, explains why the Charter of the United Nations must be understood as the constitution of the international community, and the legal consequences arising from that characterization.

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Abstract: The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790 During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers–-re-examined here as Founding Brothers–combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes–--Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedentsetting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence–FOUNDING BROTHERS brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history

The architecture of democracy : constitutional design, conflict management, and democracy

Abstract: PART I: INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES: AN OVERVIEW Introduction Institutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy in Divided Societies 1. 1. Constitutional Design and the Problem of adoption: Proposals versus Processes 2. The Wave of Power Sharing Democracy 3. Institutions and Coalition-Building in Post-Communist Transitions PART II: PRESIDENTIALISM, FEDERALISM AND DECENTRALIZATION, AND ELECTORAL SYSTEMS. 4. Presidents, Parliaments and Democracy: Insights from the Post-Communist World 5. Presidentialism and Democratic Performance 6. Constitutional asymmetries: Communal Representation, Federalism, and Cultural Autonomy 7. Federalism and State-Building: Post-Communist and Post-Colonial Perspectives 8. Ballots not Bullets: Testing Consociational Theories of Ethnic Conflict, Electoral Systems and Democratization 9. Designing Electoral Rules and Waiting for an Electoral System to Evolve PART III: COUNTRY STUDIES 10. 10. Constitutional Engineering in Fiji 11. The British-Irish Agreement of 1998: Results and Prospects 12. The Eritrean Experience in Constitution Making: The Dialectic of Process and Substance 13. Indonesia's Democratic Transition: Playing By the Rules 14. Institutional Design, Ethnic Conflict Management, and Democracy in Nigeria 15. India

Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution

Abstract: In this groundbreaking study of American imperialism, leading legal scholars address the problem of the U.S. territories. Foreign in a Domestic Sense will redefine the boundaries of constitutional scholarship. More than four million U.S. citizens currently live in five “unincorporated” U.S. territories. The inhabitants of these vestiges of an American empire are denied full representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Focusing on Puerto Rico, the largest and most populous of the territories, Foreign in a Domestic Sense sheds much-needed light on the United States’ unfinished colonial experiment and its legacy of racially rooted imperialism, while insisting on the centrality of these “marginal” regions in any serious treatment of American constitutional history. For one hundred years, Puerto Ricans have struggled to define their place in a nation that neither wants them nor wants to let them go. They are caught in a debate too politicized to yield meaningful answers. Meanwhile, doubts concerning the constitutionality of keeping colonies have languished on the margins of mainstream scholarship, overlooked by scholars outside the island and ignored by the nation at large. This book does more than simply fill a glaring omission in the study of race, cultural identity, and the Constitution; it also makes a crucial contribution to the study of American federalism, serves as a foundation for substantive debate on Puerto Rico’s status, and meets an urgent need for dialogue on territorial status between the mainlandd and the territories. Contributors. Jose Julian Alvarez Gonzalez, Roberto Aponte Toro, Christina Duffy Burnett, Jose A. Cabranes, Sanford Levinson, Burke Marshall, Gerald L. Neuman, Angel R. Oquendo, Juan Perea, Efren Rivera Ramos, Rogers M. Smith, E. Robert Statham Jr., Brook Thomas, Richard Thornburgh, Juan R. Torruella, Jose Trias Monge, Mark Tushnet, Mark Weiner