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Palgrave Macmillan

Law, Society & Politics

A Critical Analysis of U.S. Supreme Court Power in the Political & Legal Process

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Marvin L. Astrada

    1. New York University, Washington DC, USA

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  • Re-examines the impact of the Supreme Court on democratic representation in American law and politics. The anti-democratic and elitist nature of the Court's power to pronounce what constitutes the People in the American polity is revisited and assessed
  • Analyzes the impact of the Court from a conceptual and comprehensive perspective that seeks to illuminate how the Court's interpretation of the People affects the actual peoples in a representative democracy
  • Revisits, re-conceptualizes, and adds a distinct critical perspective to the literature seeking to ascertain the role and consequence of Court power on American law, politics, and society

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
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  2. Step 1: Backgrounder for an Exercise in Disaggregation

    • Marvin L. Astrada
    Pages 1-29

  3. Step 2: Illuminating Court Power Through Disaggregation—Elitism, Power, Process, Discourse and Representation

    • Marvin L. Astrada
    Pages 31-55

  4. Step 3: The People as Political, Discursive and Legal Construct

    • Marvin L. Astrada
    Pages 57-89

  5. Step 4: The People, Process, Law and Court Power

    • Marvin L. Astrada
    Pages 91-111

  6. Step 5: Concluding Thoughts: Truth, the People, Court Power and Representative Politics

    • Marvin L. Astrada
    Pages 113-122

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 123-126
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores critical questions pertaining to the character and content of the “American People” as posited in the US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the fundamental law. What exactly is an American? Who or what comprise the People?  What are the constitutive sociocultural, political, and economic ordering principles of the American People and society? How does the Court impact the nationalist character and content of law and policy? From a sociocultural, economic, political, and ideological perspective, the Court’s singular proclamations as to what the US Constitution means, what is its purpose, and how it is to be perceived and implemented have profound consequences for representational politics and notions of what exactly constitutes the American polity. This book employs a critical, conceptual, and structural approach, critically examining the notion of the People in constitutional discourse, and its impact on government, politics, law, and society in the present.

Reviews

“‘We the People’ is a great rhetorical flourish to begin the Preamble to the US Constitution. This fine work examines critically the way the elite in the Supreme Court have woven a mosaic of interpretation around the concept of People (and that of peoples).”

—Roger S. Clark, Board of Governors Professor of Law, Rutgers University Law School, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  • New York University, Washington DC, USA

    Marvin L. Astrada

About the author

Marvin L. Astrada is a Lecturer in the Politics & History Department at New York University in Washington D.C., USA. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations, and a JD. His research, focusing on the intersection between law, politics, and society, has appeared in various law journals and peer reviewed books.

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