Synopses & Reviews
From the sprawling remnants of the Soviet empire to the southern tip of Africa, attempts are underway to replace arbitrary political regimes with governments constrained by the rule of law. This ideal which subordinates the wills of individuals, social movements--and even, sometimes, democratically elected majorities--to the requirements of law, is here explored by leading legal and political thinkers.
Part I of The Rule of Law examines the interplay of democracy and the rule of law, while Part II focusses on the centuries-old debate about the meaning of the rule of law itself. Part III takes up the constraints that rationality exercises on the rule of law. If the rule of law is desirable partly because it is rational, then departures from that rule might also be desirable in the event that they can be shown to be rational. Part IV concentrates on the limits of the rule of law, considering the tensions between liberalism and the rule of law which exist despite the fact that reasoned commitment to the rule of the law is preeminently a liberal commitment.
Contributing to the volume are: Robert A. Burt (Yale University), Steven J. Burton (University of Iowa), William N. Eskridge, Jr. (Georgetown University), John Ferejohn (Stanford University), Richard Flathman (Johns Hopkins University), Gerald F. Gaus (University of Minnesota, Duluth), Jean Hampton (University of Arizona), Russell Hardin (University of Chicago), James Johnson (University of Rochester), Jack Knight (Washington University), Stephen Macedo (Harvard University), David Schmidtz (Yale University), Lawrence B. Solum (Loyola Marymount University), Michael Walzer (Princeton University), Catherine Valcke (University of Toronto), and Michael P. Zuckert (Carleton College).
Review
"Has profound political implications for race relations in the new century."-Michigan Law Review,
Review
"Sophisticated and passionate . . . As [Robert Chang] says, our world is now 'bursting with color' and it is his accomplishment in this book to re-theorize the vocabulary within which questions of race are debated in this society."-Stanley Fish,University of Illinois, Chicago
Synopsis
Does "Asian American" denote an ethnic or racial identification? Is a person of mixed ancestry, the child of Euro- and Asian American parents, Asian American? What does it mean to refer to first generation Hmong refugees and fifth generation Chinese Americans both as Asian American?
In Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation State, Robert Chang examines the current discourse on race and law and the implications of postmodern theory and affirmative action-all of which have largely excluded Asian Americans-in order to develop a theory of critical Asian American legal studies.
Demonstrating that the ongoing debate surrounding multiculturalism and immigration in the U.S. is really a struggle over the meaning of "America," Chang reveals how the construction of Asian American-ness has become a necessary component in stabilizing a national American identity-- a fact Chang criticizes as harmful to Asian Americans. Defining the many "borders" that operate in positive and negative ways to construct America as we know it, Chang analyzes the position of Asian Americans within America's black/white racial paradigm, how "the family" operates as a stand-in for race and nation, and how the figure of the immigrant embodies a central contradiction in allegories of America.
"Has profound political implications for race relations in the new century"
Michigan Law Review, May 2001
About the Author
Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also serves as Henry R. Luce Director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. He is the editor or author of numerous books, most recently Political Contingency (NYU Press) and Rethinking Political Institutions (NYU Press).