Our Elusive Constitution: Silences, Paradoxes, Priorities

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Through a distinctive blending of political and legal analysis, this book draws attention to urgent questions in constitutional thought that have received inadequate attention from courts and scholars. Daniel N. Hoffman argues that we can avoid the pitfalls of much legal and political-science scholarship if we attend carefully to certain problems posed by constitutional silences, paradoxes, and priorities. "Silences" are issues of current concern on which the Constitution has little or nothing explicit to say, such as the role and influence of administrative bureaucracy, political parties, and multinational corporations. "Paradoxes" are anomalies within modern constitutional doctrine that reflect the built-in tensions between liberal and republican ideas, as well as the historical impact of forces such as nationalism and capitalism. And "Priorities" refers to the need for a more principled account of how to balance or choose between different constitutional values.Among the topics Hoffman explores are the relationship between law and politics, the relationship between the citizen and the state, the jurisprudence of personal rights, and the need for expanded political and economic rights to restore balance to the constitutional system.