Background
Ackerman, Bruce Arnold was born on August 19, 1943 in New York City. Son of Nathan and Jean (Rosenberg) Ackerman.
( A new view’ of the theoretical foundations of liberal...)
A new view’ of the theoretical foundations of liberalism that will challenge us to clarify our own implicit notions of liberal democracy.’ ”The New York Times Book Review Professor Ackerman has tackled age-old problems of social justice with the refreshing technique of a series of dialogues in which the proponent of a position must either confront his opponent with an answer, constrained by the three principles of rationality, consistency, and neutrality, or submit to a checkmate. The author’s ability to combine earthiness with extreme subtlety in framing the dialogues has produced a novel, mind-stretching book.”Henry J. Friendly, Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit What limits should we place on genetic manipulation? How many children should we have? How should we regulate abortions and adoptions? What rights does the community have, what rights do parents have in the education of children? What rights do children have? What resources must we leave to future generations? To see all these as questions of distributive justice is to connect them in a new way (and to make) a significant contribution.”Michael Walzer, The New Republic The breadth of the attack on the fundamental issues of man and society is impressive.”Foreign Affairs What an extraordinary book it is. . . profound without being professional. . . novel without being trendy. . . chatty and witty without being cute or flippant.”Michael Sean Quinn, Lone Star Review/The Dallas Times Herald Bruce A. Ackerman is professor of law at the Yale Law School.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300027575/?tag=2022091-20
( Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of ou...)
Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of our nation's constitutional experience and its promise for the future. Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts the past, present, and future of popular sovereignty in America. Only this distinguished scholar could present such an insightful view of the role of the Supreme Court. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman proposes a new model of judicial interpretation that would synthesize the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole. The author ranges from examining the origins of the dualist tradition in the Federalist Papers to reflecting upon recent, historic constitutional decisions. The latest revolutions in civil rights, and the right to privacy, are integrated into the fabric of constitutionalism. Today's Constitution can best be seen as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. Ackerman examines the roles played during each of these periods by the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. He shows that Americans have built a distinctive type of constitutional democracy, unlike any prevailing in Europe. It is a dualist democracy, characterized by its continuing effort to distinguish between two kinds of politics: normal politics, in which organized interest groups try to influence democratically elected representatives; and constitutional politics, in which the mass of citizens mobilize to debate matters of fundamental principle. Although American history is dominated by normal politics, our tradition places a higher value on mobilized efforts to gain the consent of the people to new governing principles.In a dualist democracy, the rare triumphs of constitutional politics determine the course of normal politics.More than a decade in the making, and the first of three volumes, this compelling book speaks to all who seek to renew and redefine our civic commitments in the decades ahead.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674948416/?tag=2022091-20
(The proper construction of the compensation clause of the...)
The proper construction of the compensation clause of the Constitution has emerged as the central legal issue of the environmental revolution, as property owners have challenged a steady stream of environmental statutes that have cut deeply into traditional notions of property rights. When may they justly demand that the state compensate them for the sacrifices they are called upon to make for the common good? Ackerman argues that there is more at stake in the present wave of litigation than even the future shape of environmental law in the United States. To frame an adequate response, lawyers must come to terms with an analytic conflict that implicates the nature of modern legal thought itself. Ackerman expresses this conflict in terms of two opposed ideal types---Scientific Policymaking and Ordinary Observing---and sketches the very different way in which these competing approaches understand the compensation question. He also tries to demonstrate that the confusion of current compensation doctrine is a product of the legal profession's failure to choose between these two modes of legal analysis. He concludes by exploring the large implications of such a choice---relating the conflict between Scientific Policymaking and Ordinary Observing to fundamental issues in economic analysis, political theory, metaethics, and the philosophy of language.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300020651/?tag=2022091-20
( Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have em...)
Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have emerged in Eastern Europe, and revolutionary struggles to establish liberal ideals have been waged against repressive governments throughout the world. Will the promise of liberalism be realized? What can liberals do to make the most of their opportunities and construct enduring forms of political order? In this important and timely book, a leading political theorist discusses the possibility of liberal democracy in Western and Eastern Europe and offers practical suggestions for its realization. Bruce Ackerman begins by sketching the challenges faced a Western Europe free for the first time in half a century to determine its own fate without the constant intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union. Unless decisive steps are taken, this moment of promise can degenerate into a new cycle of nationalist power struggle. Revolutionary action is now required to build the foundations of a democratic federal Europe—a union strong enough to keep the peace and to combat the threat of local tyrannies. Ackerman next considers Eastern Europe and discusses fundamental problems overlooked in the rush to build market economies there. He points out that leading countries—including Poland, Hungary, and Russia—have yet to establish new constitutions, contenting themselves instead with hasty amendments to old Communist documents. This is a great mistake, says Ackerman, for there is an urgent need to constitutionalize liberal revolution, and the window of opportunity for doing this is far smaller than many people realize. Neither judicial efforts to punish collaborators with the old regimes and to redress wrongs done to their victims nor the judicial activism now sweeping Eastern Europe should take priority over the formulation of democratically legitimated constitutions. Ackerman concludes by considering the impact of 1989 on South Africa, Latin America, and the United States, exploring how decisive liberal action throughout the world can help to expand the range of functioning constitutional democracies and recover liberalism's lost revolutionary heritage. .
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300058985/?tag=2022091-20
(In this publication, two leading law professors challenge...)
In this publication, two leading law professors challenge the existing campaign reform agenda in America and present an initiative that claims to avoid the mistakes of the past. Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres build on the example of the secret ballot and propose a system of "secret donation booths" for campaign contributions. They unveil a plan in which the government provides each voter with a special credit card account containing 50 "Patriot dollars" for presidential elections. To use this money, citizens go to their local ATM machine and anonymously send their Patriot dollars to their favourite candidates or political organizations. Americans are free to make additional contributions, but they must also give these gifts anonymously. Because candidates cannot identify who provided the funds, it will be much harder for big contributors to buy political influence. And the need for politicians to compete for the Patriot dollars will give much more power to the people. Ackerman and Ayres work out the operating details of their plan, anticipate problems, design safeguards, suggest overseers, and show how their proposals satisfy the most stringent constitutional requirements. They conclude with a model statute that could serve as the basis of a serious congressional effort to restore Americans' faith in democratic politics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300092628/?tag=2022091-20
( The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when it was...)
The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when it was almost destroyed by the rise of political parties in the United States. As Bruce Ackerman shows, the Framers had not anticipated the two-party system, and when Republicans battled Federalists for the presidency in 1800, the rules laid down by the Constitution exacerbated the crisis. With Republican militias preparing to march on Washington, the House of Representatives deadlocked between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Based on seven years of archival research, the book describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis. Ackerman shows how Thomas Jefferson counted his Federalist rivals out of the House runoff, and how the Federalists threatened to place John Marshall in the presidential chair. Nevertheless, the Constitution managed to survive through acts of statesmanship and luck. Despite the intentions of the Framers, the presidency had become a plebiscitarian office. Thomas Jefferson gained office as the People's choice and acted vigorously to fulfill his popular mandate. This transformation of the presidency serves as the basis for a new look at Marbury v. Madison, the case that first asserted the Supreme Court's power of judicial review. Ackerman shows that Marbury is best seen in combination with another case, Stuart v. Laird, as part of a retreat by the Court in the face of the plebiscitarian presidency. This "switch in time" proved crucial to the Court's survival, allowing it to integrate Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic. Ackerman presents a revised understanding of the early days of two great institutions that continue to have a major impact on American history: the plebiscitarian presidency and a Supreme Court that struggles to put the presidency's claims of a popular mandate into constitutional perspective.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674023951/?tag=2022091-20
( Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, an...)
Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first, as Bruce Ackerman makes clear in We the People: Transformations. The Founding Fathers, hardly the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a remarkable course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures to this day. After the bloody sacrifices of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party revolutionized the traditional system of constitutional amendment as they put principles of liberty and equality into higher law. Another wrenching transformation occurred during the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers vindicated a new vision of activist government against an assault by the Supreme Court. These are the crucial episodes in American constitutional history that Ackerman takes up in this second volume of a trilogy hailed as "one of the most important contributions to American constitutional thought in the last half-century" (Cass Sunstein, New Republic). In each case he shows how the American people--whether led by the Founding Federalists or the Lincoln Republicans or the Roosevelt Democrats--have confronted the Constitution in its moments of great crisis with dramatic acts of upheaval, always in the name of popular sovereignty. A thoroughly new way of understanding constitutional development, We the People: Transformations reveals how America's "dualist democracy" provides for these populist upheavals that amend the Constitution, often without formalities. The book also sets contemporary events, such as the Reagan Revolution and Roe v. Wade, in deeper constitutional perspective. In this context Ackerman exposes basic constitutional problems inherited from the New Deal Revolution and exacerbated by the Reagan Revolution, then considers the fundamental reforms that might resolve them. A bold challenge to formalist and fundamentalist views, this volume demonstrates that ongoing struggle over America's national identity, rather than consensus, marks its constitutional history.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674003977/?tag=2022091-20
( A study of the uncertain constitutional foundations of ...)
A study of the uncertain constitutional foundations of private property in American law and a discussion of two vastly different methods by which courts may resolve the confusion.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300022379/?tag=2022091-20
(Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of th...)
Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of the last half-century have transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for political extremism and lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another - from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century - and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward. The book aims to begin a new constitutional debate. Americans should not suppose that Barack Obama's centrism and constitutionalism will typify the presidencies of the twenty-first century. We should seize the present opportunity to confront deeper institutional pathologies before it is too late.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674725840/?tag=2022091-20
(Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of repr...)
Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of repressive laws. This book presents a practical alternative. It proposes an 'emergency constitution' that would enable the government to take extraordinary actions to prevent a second strike in the short run while prohibiting permanent measures that destroy our freedom over the longer run.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FDVDM56/?tag=2022091-20
( Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of re...)
Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of repressive laws, setting in motion a vicious cycle that threatens to devastate civil liberties over the twenty-first century. In this clear-sighted book, Bruce Ackerman peers into the future and presents an intuitive, practical alternative. He proposes an emergency constitution” that enables government to take extraordinary actions to prevent a second strike in the short run while prohibiting permanent measures that destroy our freedom over the longer run. Ackerman’s emergency constitution” exposes the dangers lurking behind the popular notion that we are fighting a war” on terror. He criticizes court opinions that have adopted the war framework, showing how they uncritically accept extreme presidential claims to sweeping powers. Instead of expanding the authority of the commander in chief, the courts should encourage new forms of checks and balances that allow for decisive, but carefully controlled, presidential action during emergencies. In making his case, Ackerman explores emergency provisions in constitutions of nations ranging from France to South Africa, retaining aspects that work and adapting others. He shows that no country today is well equipped to both fend off terrorists and preserve fundamental liberties, drawing particular attention to recent British reactions to terrorist attacks. Written for thoughtful citizens throughout the world, this book is democracy's constitutional reply to political excess in the sinister era of terrorism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300122667/?tag=2022091-20
philosopher university professor
Ackerman, Bruce Arnold was born on August 19, 1943 in New York City. Son of Nathan and Jean (Rosenberg) Ackerman.
Ackerman graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1964 and an Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School in 1967.
He is a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School. In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers. He clerked for United States Court of Appeals Judge Henry J. Friendly from 1967 to 1968, and then for United States. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II from 1968 to 1969.
Ackerman joined the faculty of University of Pennsylvania in 1969.
He was a Professor at Yale University from 1974 to 1982 and at Columbia University from 1982 to 1987. Since 1987 Ackerman has been the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale.
He teaches classes at Yale on the concepts of justice and on his theories of constitutional transformation (ie, the Constitution of the Founders was transformed by the Civil War/Reconstruction and the New Deal). Their son, John M. Ackerman, is also an academic who lives and works in Mexico.
Their daughter, Sybil Ackerman-Munson is an environmentalist in Portland, Oregon.
In her recent book on Hans Kelsen, Sandrine Baume identified Bruce Ackerman as a leading critic of the "compatibility of judicial review with the very principles of democracy", in contrast to writers like John Hart Ely and Ronald Dworkin.
(The proper construction of the compensation clause of the...)
( Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have em...)
( Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, an...)
(Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of th...)
( A study of the uncertain constitutional foundations of ...)
( Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of re...)
(In this publication, two leading law professors challenge...)
( A new view’ of the theoretical foundations of liberal...)
( The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when it was...)
( Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of ou...)
(Terrorist attacks regularly trigger the enactment of repr...)
(Book by Ackerman, Bruce)
This reading of Ackerman fails to account for Ackerman"s many arguments for judicial review in a democratic constitution, such as his Storrs Lecture, when he noted that judicial review "is part of a larger theme that distinguishes the American Constitution from other, less durable, frameworks for liberal democracy." As one of three principles of the economy of virtue, Ackerman sees a constitutional design for judicial review "that gives judges special incentives to uphold the integrity of earlier constitutional solutions against the pulling and hauling of normal politics." Ackerman has refined this approach but still asserts "I refuse to join in the general retreat from judicial review that characterizes the contemporary work of many liberal constitutionalists.".
Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member American Law Institute.
Married Susan Gould Rose, May 29, 1967. Children: Sybil Rose, John Mill.