Can a parliamentary democracy end America's constitutional crisis?
Americans face increasingly stark choices each presidential election and a growing sense that our government can't solve the nation's most urgent challenges. Our eighteenth-century system is ill suited to our twenty-first-century world. Information-age technology has undermined our capacity to face common problems together and turned our democracy upside down, with gerrymanders letting representatives choose voters rather than voters choosing them. In Parliamentary America, Maxwell L. Stearns argues that the solution to these complex problems is a parliamentary democracy.
Stearns considers such leading alternatives as ranked choice voting, the national popular vote, and congressional term limits, showing why these can't solve our constitutional crisis. Instead, three amendments—expanding the House of Representatives, having House party coalitions choose the president, and letting the House end a failing presidency based on no confidence—will produce a robust multiparty democracy. These amendments hold an essential advantage over other proposals: by leaving every member of the House and Senate as incumbents in their districts or states, the amendments provide a pressure-release valve against reforms threatening that status.
Stearns takes readers on a world tour—England, France, Germany, Israel, Taiwan, Brazil, and Venezuela—showing what works in government, what doesn't, and how to make the best features our own. Genuine party competition and governing coalitions, commonplace across the globe, may seem like a fantasy in the United States. But we can make them a reality. This rare book offers an optimistic vision, explaining in accessible terms how to transform our troubled democracy into a thriving parliamentary America.
By:
Maxwell L. Stearns
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 31mm
Weight: 658g
ISBN: 9781421448336
ISBN 10: 1421448335
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 05 March 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Introduction. Happier Birthdays, Better Parties Part I. How We Got Here Chapter 1. The Third Constitutional Crisis Chapter 2. The Third-Party Dilemma Chapter 3. Constitutional Gridlock: How a System We Managed for Two Centuries Suddenly Went off the Rails Chapter 4. The End of Trust: Experts, the Government, and the Media Part II. The World Tour Chapter 5. The European Tour: England, France, and Germany Chapter 6. Democratic Variations: Israel, Taiwan, Brazil, and Venezuela Part III. Three Amendments That Will Fix Our Broken System Chapter 7. Reinventing the House of Representatives: More Voices, More Parties, More Power Chapter 8. Reinventing Presidential Elections: The Art of Coalition Politics Chapter 9. Reinventing Presidential Removal: How ""No Confidence"" Instills Confidence Part IV. The Politics of Ratification and Envisioning Parliamentary America Chapter 10. Achieving Coalition Governance: The Politics of Passing These Amendments Chapter 11. Parliamentary America: Toward Better Politics, Further Reforms, and a Civil Society Conclusion. From ""We the People"" to ""We the Framers"" Acknowledgments Appendix Notes Index"
Maxwell L. Stearns (BALTIMORE, MD) is the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. He has authored dozens of articles and several books on the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the economic analysis of law.
