Keeping the People's Liberties Legislators, Citizens, and Judges as Guardians of Rights / John J. Dinan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dinan, John J., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politique et gouvernement--États-Unis--États.

Politique et gouvernement.

Pouvoir legislatif--États-Unis.

Pouvoir legislatif.

Pouvoir judiciaire--États-Unis.

Pouvoir judiciaire.

Droits civils et politiques--États-Unis.

Droits civils et politiques.

Pouvoir constituant--États-Unis.

Pouvoir constituant.

Politics and government.

Legislative power--U.S. states.

Legislative power.

Judicial power--U.S. states.

Judicial power.

Constituent power--U.S. states.

Constituent power.

Civil rights--U.S. states.

Civil rights.

Constituent power--United States--States.

Legislative power--United States--States.

Judicial power--United States--States.

Civil rights--United States--States.

Civil rights--United States.

United States.

United States--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XII-259 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

University Press of Kansas 1998

Lawrence (Kan.) : University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Which branch of government should be entrusted with safeguarding individual rights? Conventional wisdom assigns this responsibility to the courts, on the grounds that liberty can only be protected through judicial interpretation of bills of rights. In fact it is difficult for many people even to conceive of any other way that rights might be protected. John Dinan challenges this understanding by tracing and evaluating the different methods that have been used to protect rights in the United States from the founding until the present era.By examining legislative statutes, judicial decisions, convention proceedings, and popular initiatives in four representative states—Massachusetts, Virginia, Michigan, and Oregon—Dinan shows that rights have been secured in the American polity in three principal ways. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, rights were protected primarily through representative institutions. Then in the early twentieth century, citizens began to turn to direct democratic institutions to secure their rights. It was not until the midtwentieth century that judges came to be seen as the chief protectors of liberties.By analyzing the relative ability of legislators, citizens, and judges to serve as guardians of rights, Dinan's study demonstrates that each is capable of securing certain rights in certain situations. Elected representatives are generally capable of protecting most rights, but popular initiatives provide an effective mechanism for securing rights in the face of legislative intransigence, and judicial decisions offer a superior means of protecting liberties in crisis times. Accordingly, rather than viewing rights protection as the peculiar province of any single institution, this task ought to be considered the proper responsibility of all these institutions.By undertaking a comparison of these institutional methods across such a wide expanse of time, Keeping the People's Liberties makes a highly original contribution to the literature on rights protection and provides a new perspective on debates about the contemporary role of representative, populist, and judicial institutions.

Contents:

Front Cover

Halftitle

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of Contents

Kansas Open Books Preface

Preface

1. The Theory and Design of Republican Institutions

2. Republican Institutions and the Protection of Rights

3. Republican Institutions as Keepers of the People's Liberties

4. The Theory and Design of Populist Institutions

5. Populist Institutions and the Protection of Rights

6. Populist Institutions as Keepers of the People's Liberties

7. The Theory and Design of Judicialist Institutions

8. Judicialist Institutions and the Protection of Rights

9. Judicialist Institutions as Keepers of the People's Liberties

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Back Cover.

Notes:

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780700609055

0700609059

OCLC:

1227916112

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access.