ISBN:
074866954X
,
9780748669547
Language:
English
Pages:
VIII, 192 S.
Abstract:
Almost every state in the world has a written constitution, the great majority of which declare the constitution to be the law controlling the organs of the state. We tend to label western liberal political systems as "constitutional democracies," dividing the system into a domain of politics in which the people rule and a domain of law set aside for a trained elite. Legal, political, and constitutional practices demonstrate that constitutionalism and democracy seem to be irreconcilable. Yet is good government feasible and is a constitutional system the best device to rule a country? Can the public and legal sovereignties be reconciled?Antoni Abat I Ninet strives to resolve these apparently exclusive realms of power, using as case studies their various avatars across the globe. The American constitutional experience that has dominated western constitutional thought is here challenged as a quasi-religious doctrine and Ninet argues that human rights and democracy must strive to deactivate the "invisible" but very real violence embedded in our seemingly sacrosanct constitutions.
