The language of rights is ubiquitous. It shapes the way we construct our debates over issues such as abortion, affirmative action and sexual freedom. This provocative new study challenges the very concept of rights, arguing that they jeopardize our liberty and undermine democratic debate. By re-conceptualizing our ideas about limited government, it suggests that we can limit the reasons or rationales on which the polity may act. Whereas we once used the language of rights to thwart democra...

Usually, when we discuss racial injustice, we discuss racism in our public or political life. This means that we often focus on how the state discriminates on the basis of race in its application and enforcement of laws and policies. This book draws on the synergy of political theory and civil rights law to expand the boundary of racial justice and consider the way in which racial discrimination happens outside the governmental or public sphere. 'Private racism' is about recognizing that r...

The conventional interpretation of equality under the law singles out certain groups or classes for constitutional protection: women, racial minorities, and gays and lesbians. The United States Supreme Court calls these groups 'suspect classes'. Laws that discriminate against them are generally unconstitutional. While this is a familiar account of equal protection jurisprudence, this book argues that this approach suffers from hitherto unnoticed normative and political problems. The book e...

History is replete with instances of what might, or might not, have been. By calling something contingent, at a minimum we are saying that it did not have to be as it is. Things could have been otherwise, and they would have been otherwise if something had happened differently. This collection of original essays examines the significance of contingency in the study of politics. That is, how to study unexpected, accidental, or unknowable political phenomena in a systematic fashion. Yitzhak ...

Although the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States has ended, no one seems to know what lies on the horizon. The conversation about what marriage could be like in the future is no longer confined to academics. In his dissent in Obergefell, Chief Justice Roberts linked the constitutionally-mandated legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the possibility that states may also have to recognize multi-person intimate relationships as well to avoid discriminating against plural ma...

Freedom of speech is one of our greatest legal rights and Cass Sunstein is one of our greatest legal theorists. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the free speech issues facing this generation.--Akhil Amar, Southmayd Professor, Yale Law SchoolThis is an important book. Beautifully clear and carefully argued, Sunstein's contribution reaches well beyond the confines of academic debate. It will be of interest to any citizen concerned a...

The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement.What exactly is deliberative democracy? Why is it more def...

The future of the U.S. Supreme Court hangs in the balance like never before. Will conservatives or liberals succeed in remaking the court in their own image? In A Constitution of Many Minds, acclaimed law scholar Cass Sunstein proposes a bold new way of interpreting the Constitution, one that respects the Constitution's text and history but also refuses to view the document as frozen in time.Exploring hot-button issues ranging from presidential power to same-sex relations ...

According to republican theory, we are free persons to the extent that we are protected and secured in the same fundamental choices, on the same public basis, as one another. But there is no public protection or security without a coercive state. Does this mean that any freedom we enjoy is a superficial good that presupposes a deeper, political form of subjection? Philip Pettit addresses this crucial question in On the People's Terms. He argues that state coercion will not involve individu...

What should we expect from democracy, and how likely is it that democracies will live up to those expectations? In The State of Democratic Theory, Ian Shapiro offers a critical assessment of contemporary answers to these questions, lays out his distinctive alternative, and explores its implications for policy and political action.Some accounts of democracy's purposes focus on aggregating preferences; others deal with collective deliberation in search of the common good. Sh...

Stuart A. Scheingold's landmark work introduced a new understanding of the contribution of rights to progressive social movements, and thirty years later it still stands as a pioneering and provocative work, bridging political science and sociolegal studies. In the preface to this new edition, the author provides a cogent analysis of the burgeoning scholarship that has been built on the foundations laid in his original volume. A new foreword from Malcolm Feeley of Berkeley's Boalt Hall Sch...

In 1999 the Nisga’a First Nation in northwestern British Columbia signed a landmark agreement which not only settled their land claim but outlined significant powers that could be exercised by its government. The Nisga’a Final Agreement granted powers over land, resources, education, and cultural policy to the Nisga’a government, a major departure from previous land claims agreements. However, it was not without opposition and Scott also outlines the opposition, including two court challen...