This concise book examines Bruce Ackerman’s influential account of American constitutional development. Ackerman distinguishes ordinary lawmaking by elected officials from “higher lawmaking,” when mobilized citizens are said to speak with constitutional authority during rare turning points.
George Skouras tests that account against the Founding, Reconstruction, and the New Deal. He questions whether these episodes reveal a single popular mandate and whether the Supreme Court can plausibly serve as the faithful codifier of the people’s will.
The central argument
Appeals to “We the People” carry enormous democratic force, but popular sovereignty cannot be assumed. Constitutional change emerges through conflict among citizens, political institutions, courts, and unequal social powers. A theory of higher lawmaking must therefore explain whose voice counts, how consent is measured, and why later judicial rulings should be treated as the people’s settled judgment.
Subjects
Constitutional law, democratic theory, popular sovereignty, judicial review, constitutional history, Bruce Ackerman, Reconstruction, and the New Deal.