Constitutional Interpretation & Political Theory: American Legal Realism's Continuing Search for Standards

Polity ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-514
Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation

Then and Now: Participant‐Observation in Political Theory

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Difference

This article examines changes in the study of participant-observation in the field of political theory. It explains that in the early 1960s, political theory was widely considered as a moribund enterprise. Empiricists were pushing a new science of politics, designed to replace the options of constitutional interpretation, impressionistic theory, and traditionalism. But by the mid-1960s the end of ideology screeched to a halt because of growing outrage about the Vietnam War, worries among college students about the draft, and the emergence of a civil rights movement. The academic study of political theory was revived and a series of studies emerged to challenge the fact-value dichotomy, the difference between science and ideology, and the public roles of academics.

Text and Unwritten Understandings

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
George Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
Different Parts

Unwritten ideas underlie all approaches to constitutional interpretation, as each approach has an implicit political theory that drives its understanding of text. Some jurists and scholars think that constitutional interpretation should include applying general principles and understandings in ways we may never have thought about before. Others insist that such work should come by way of democratic legislation or constitutional amendment, not by way of constitutional interpretation by unelected judges. Yet each approach rests on unwritten understandings—on a political theory that underlies the Constitution, which is the source of our debates about how to faithfully follow the written Constitution. This also requires that we weigh and balance the different parts of the Constitution to see how they fit together as a coherent whole, relying on judgments that are not rooted in text.

Political Theory and Miscellaneous

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 399-402
Author(s):  
Harold F. Gosnell
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory

Kropotkin

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

This book is designed to remove Peter Kropotkin from the framework of classical anarchism. By focusing attention on his theory of mutual aid, it argues that the classical framing distorts Kropotkin's political theory by associating it with a narrowly positivistic conception of science, a naively optimistic idea of human nature and a millenarian idea of revolution. Kropotkin's abiding concern with Russian revolutionary politics is the lens for this analysis. The argument is that his engagement with nihilism shaped his conception of science and that his expeditions in Siberia underpinned an approach to social analysis that was rooted in geography. Looking at Kropotkin's relationship with Elisée Reclus and Erico Malatesta and examining his critical appreciation of P-J. Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner, the study shows how he understood anarchist traditions and reveals the special character of his anarchist communism. His idea of the state as a colonising process and his contention that exploitation and oppression operate in global contexts is a key feature of this. Kropotkin's views about the role of theory in revolutionary practice show how he developed this critique of the state and capitalism to advance an idea of political change that combined the building of non-state alternatives through direct action and wilful disobedience. Against critics who argue that Kropotkin betrayed these principles in 1914, the book suggests that this controversial decision was consistent with his anarchism and that it reflected his judgment about the prospects of anarchistic revolution in Russia.

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