Research Catalog

Title

Constitutional domains : democracy, community, management / Robert C. Post.

Author

Post, Robert, 1947-

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 463 pages; 25 cm

Summary

• Drawing on work in sociology, philosophy, and political theory, Post demonstrates that the law establishes distinct and competing forms of social order: democracy, in which the law embodies the possibilities of collective self-determination; community, in which the law articulates and enforces a common social identity; and management, in which the law creates the conditions for accomplishing specific goals. Debates over the boundaries between these distinct domains, Post argues, are central to some of the most intractable problems of modern constitutional law. Here we see, for instance, how the controversy over the regulation of racist speech negotiates the boundary between communitarian and democratic forms of social ordering. We see how public forum doctrine, a crucial but notoriously mysterious component of First Amendment jurisprudence, arbitrates distinctions between the social domains of democracy and management.
• Taking up specific court cases, such as that against Hustler magazine and that allowing prayers before state legislatures, Post shows us what is actually at stake in these constitutional struggles. A highly complex and sophisticated account of the operation of constitutional law in modern society, Constitutional Domains is essential reading for lawyers, social theorists, and makers of public policy.

Subject

• Constitutional law > Social aspects > United States
• Sociological jurisprudence
• Constitutional law > Social aspects
• Sociological jurisprudence
• Rechtssoziologie
• Sozialer Wandel
• Verfassungsrecht
• Staatsrecht
• Sociale aspecten
• Rechtssociologie
• Staatkunde
• Droit constitutionnel > Aspect social > Etats-Unis
• Sociologie juridique
• Rechtssoziologie
• Verfassungsrecht
• Sozialer Wandel
• United States
• USA
• USA

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-450) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Theories of constitutional interpretation -- The social foundations of privacy, community and self in the common law tort -- Cultural heterogeneity and law : pornography, blasphemy, and the first amendment -- The constitutional concept of public discourse : outrageous opinion, democratic deliberation, and Hustler magazine v. Falwell -- Between democracy and community : the legal constitution of social form -- Between governance and management : the history and theory of the public forum -- Meiklejohn's mistake : individual autonomy and the reform of public discourse -- Reprise : the racist speech problem.

ISBN

• 0674165454
• 9780674165458
• 0674165462
• 9780674165465

LCCN

94029882

OCLC

• 31011190
• SCSB-10499736

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library