Studies in Political Economy

This volume investigates the nature of constitutional democratic government in the United States and elswhere. The editors introduce a basic conceptual framework, which the contributors clarify and develop in eleven essays organized into three separate sections. The first section deals with constitutional founding and the founders’ use of cultural symbols and traditions to facilitate acceptance of a new regime. The second discusses alternative constitutional structures and their effects on political outcomes. The third focuses on processes of constitutional change and why founders might choose to make formal amendments relatively difficult or easy to achieve. The book is distinctive because it provides comprehensive tools for analyzing and comparing different forms of constitutional democracy. These tools are discussed in ways that will be of interest to students and readers in political science, law, history, and political philosophy.

Co-editors of the volume are:

• Jonathan Riley (Murphy Institute),
• John Ferejohn (Stanford University), and
• Jack Rakove (Stanford University, and author of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution).

All of these scholars are also authors of individual chapters in the volume.

Other contributors include:

• William Eskridge (Georgetown Law School),
• Russell Hardin (NYU),
• Sanford Levinson (U. of Texas Law School), and
• Steven Griffin (Tulane Law School).