We the People

One of the most distinguished works on the american constitution since world war II. It combines law, political theory, political science, and even a lil economics with a rare attention to history; and it does so while developing and extremely innovative and original argument, one that has a soild claim to acceptance...There is no doubt that the book will be highly influential. I think that it will significantly alter the way that people think and talk about the American Constitution...The book is extremely well-written. Indeed, it successfully carries out the most unusual task of making difficult matters accessible to an extremely wide audience...This is a truly distinguished contribution to constitutional thought, one that will reorient the field in major ways -- Cass R. Sustein, Law School, University of Chicago The most imporant project now underway in the entire field of constitutional theory...the three volumes that will eventually comprise Ackerman's contribution theory to be published in this decade, but, indeed, perphaps in the past half-century...Ackerman posits a complex process of "Publian politics" where We The People become authorized to change the constitution without ever invoking the procedures laid out in Article V...We the people can also lay claim to being the most significant work in "constructive" American political thought since Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America published some 35 years ago. For Ackerman is reopening the question about" American exceptionalism" and arguing, with extraordinary vigor, that American political development is indeed imporantly different from European and other models -- Sanford Levinson, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin

Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts popular sovereignty in America. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman’s new model of judicial interpretation synthesizes the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole.

Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of our nation’s constitutional experience and its promise for the future. Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts the past, present, and future of popular sovereignty in America. Only this distinguished scholar could present such an insightful view of the role of the Supreme Court. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman proposes a new model of judicial interpretation that would synthesize the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole. The author ranges from examining the origins of the dualist tradition in the Federalist Papers to reflecting upon recent, historic constitutional decisions. The latest revolutions in civil rights, and the right to privacy, are integrated into the fabric of constitutionalism. Today’s Constitution can best be seen as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s.

Ackerman examines the roles played during each of these periods by the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. He shows that Americans have built a distinctive type of constitutional democracy, unlike any prevailing in Europe. It is a dualist democracy, characterized by its continuing effort to distinguish between two kinds of politics: normal politics, in which organized interest groups try to influence democratically elected representatives; and constitutional politics, in which the mass of citizens mobilize to debate matters of fundamental principle. Although American history is dominated by normal politics, our tradition places a higher value on mobilized efforts to gain the consent of the people to new governing principles. In a dualist democracy, the rare triumphs of constitutional politics determine the course of normal politics.

More than a decade in the making, and the first of three volumes, We the People, Volume 1: Foundations speaks to all who seek to renew and redefine our civic commitments in the decades ahead.