Mark Tushnet Bücher

How the Supreme Court's move to the right has distorted both logic and the Constitution

Institutions protecting constitutional democracy, such as election commissions and anticorruption investigators, are an increasingly important feature in modern constitutions. The book explains why these institutions are needed in a world where competition among political parties can undermine rather than protect democracy.

This is the second edition of Professor Tushnet's short critical introduction to the history and current meaning of the United States' Constitution. It is organised around wo themes: first, the US Constitution is old, short, and difficult to amend. Second, the Constitution creates a structure of political opportunities that allows political actors, icluding political parties, to pursue the preferred policy goals even to the point of altering the very structure of politics. Deploying these themes to examine the structure f the national government, federalism, judicial review, and individual rights, the book provides basic information about, and deeper insights into, the way he US constitutional system has developed and what it means today.

Exploring the necessity of a theory of constitutional interpretation, this work delves into the complexities of legal scholarship and the implications for understanding constitutional law. The author examines various perspectives on interpretation, challenging readers to consider the foundational principles that guide judicial decision-making. Through rigorous analysis, the book invites a reevaluation of how constitutions are understood and applied in contemporary legal contexts.

The Supreme Court has unanimously affirmed that Jackson Pollock's paintings, Arnold Schönberg's music, and Lewis Carroll's poem 'Jabberwocky' are protected by the First Amendment. This ruling extends constitutional coverage to nonrepresentational art, instrumental music, and nonsense, despite their lack of traditional language or conveyance of clear meaning. While the Court's conclusion is legally sound, its underlying premises are complex, raising challenging questions about the interplay between law and expression. Nonrepresentational art and instrumental music do not use language in a conventional sense, which complicates their classification as 'speech' under constitutional law. This ambiguity prompts inquiries into the implications for First Amendment law and theory and whether legal frameworks can address these issues without delving into aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy. This book provides a thorough exploration of these concepts, focusing on the constitutional status of these forms of expression, which have been insufficiently examined. By integrating legal doctrine, aesthetics, and analytical philosophy, three distinguished law scholars illuminate the significance of non-verbal forms of communication in understanding the First Amendment.

Mark Tushnet excels in updating the Advanced Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law. In this second edition Tushnet includes new material based on developments in practice and scholarship since the original edition's publication back in 2014. Topics which are given substantial additional attention include abusive constitutionalism, the idea of the constituent power, eternity clauses and unconstitutional amendments, recent developments in weak- and strong-form constitutional review, and expanded consideration of third generation rights. This title will appeal to those who fell in love with the first edition and those who are interested in learning more about Comparative Constitutional Law.