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Yale University Press
June 2010
On Sale: May 25, 2010
208 pages ISBN: 0300150369 EAN: 9780300150360 Paperback
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Non-Fiction
In this surprising and highly unconventional work, Harvard
law professor Mark Tushnet poses a seemingly simple question
that yields a thoroughly unexpected answer. The Constitution
matters, he argues, not because it structures our government
but because it structures our politics. He maintains that
politicians and political parties—not Supreme Court
decisions—are the true engines of constitutional change in
our system. This message will empower all citizens who use
direct political action to define and protect our rights and
liberties as Americans.nnUnlike legal scholars who
consider the Constitution only as a blueprint for American
democracy, Tushnet focuses on the ways it serves as a
framework for political debate. Each branch of government
draws substantive inspiration and procedural structure from
the Constitution but can effect change only when there is
the political will to carry it out. Tushnet’s political
understanding of the Constitution therefore does not demand
that citizens pore over the specifics of each Supreme Court
decision in order to improve our nation. Instead, by
providing key facts about Congress, the president, and the
nature of the current constitutional regime, his book
reveals not only why the Constitution matters to each of us
but also, and perhaps more important, how it matters.
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