The High Priests of American Politics offers an incisive look at how and why lawyers dominate legislatures in the United States and what impact, for better or worse, this dominance has on the broader governmental system.

Robert Nagel's innovative volume attempts to explain why, despite almost four decades of conservative and moderate appointments, the Supreme Court continues to intervene aggressively in a wide array of social and political issues. The explanation lies primarily in the psychological effects of the way that lawyers think about law and judging. The instincts ingrained by the experiences common to legal education and the successful practice of law also work to encourage the reckless use of power. Nagel argues that the problem with the modern judicial role is cultural and political. He demonstrates that judges, especially Supreme Court justices, have degraded our political discourse, intensified social conflict, and drained moral confidence. By examining modern Supreme Court confirmation hearings along with certain classic legal writings, Nagel shows how modern lawyers have a broad consensus on how to interpret the Constitution and, more generally, how to think about law. One major component of this mindset is to combine realism with legalism in ways that naturally tend to expand the judiciary's imperial role. Realism counsels that decisions are inevitably partly personal and therefore cannot be conclusively justified while legalism imparts the sense that the judge's interpretation is the best one possible. This combination of the personal and political, along with other aspects of modem legal thinking and training, means that judges are not only unconstrained by professional norms but actually are impelled by them to use power expansively. This issue is important to every person living in the U.S., as the Supreme Court's decisions concern everyone in the nation. It has the potential to be read by lawmakers, lawyers, students of law and political science, and anyone interested in Constitutional law. The thesis is unique and the execution is precise.

The author focuses directly on the Constitution's seemingly undemocratic features. He argues that constitutionalism is best regarded not as a constraint upon self-government, but as a crucial ingredient in a complex, non-majoritarian form of democracy.

A timely and multifaceted portrait of the lawyers who serve the diverse constituencies of the conservative movement, Lawyers of the Right explains what unites and divides lawyers for the three major groups—social conservatives, libertarians, and business advocates—that have coalesced in recent decades behind the Republican Party. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than seventy lawyers who represent conservative and libertarian nonprofit organizations, Ann Southworth explores their values and identities and traces the implications of their shared interest in promoting political strategies that give lawyers leading roles. She goes on to illuminate the function of mediator organizations—such as the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy—that have succeeded in promoting cooperation among different factions of conservative lawyers. Such cooperation, she finds, has aided efforts to drive law and the legal profession politically rightward and to give lawyers greater prominence in the conservative movement. Southworth concludes, though, that tensions between the conservative law movement’s elite and populist elements may ultimately lead to its undoing.

Why are Americans governed by the rich? Millionaires make up only three percent of the public but control all three branches of the federal government. How did this happen? What stops lower-income and working-class Americans from becoming politicians? The first book to answer these urgent questions, The Cash Ceiling provides a compelling and comprehensive account of why so few working-class people hold office--and what reformers can do about it. Using extensive data on candidates, politicians, party leaders, and voters, Nicholas Carnes debunks popular misconceptions (like the idea that workers are unelectable or unqualified to govern), identifies the factors that keep lower-class Americans off the ballot and out of political institutions, and evaluates a variety of reform proposals. In the United States, Carnes shows, elections have a built-in "cash ceiling," a series of structural barriers that make it almost impossible for the working-class to run for public office. Elections take a serious toll on candidates, many working-class Americans simply can't shoulder the practical burdens, and civic and political leaders often pass them over in favor of white-collar candidates. But these obstacles aren't inevitable. Pilot programs to recruit, train, and support working-class candidates have the potential to increase the economic diversity of our governing institutions and ultimately amplify the voices of ordinary citizens.

This book examines the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of Australian cabinet ministers. It examines the sorts of jobs ministers do, what is expected of them, what they expect of the job and how they (are supposed to) work together as a team. It considers aspects of how they are chosen to become ministers; how they are scrutinised by parliament and the media; and how ministers themselves view accountability. It also looks at the causes of calls for ministers to resign, examines scandals around ministers and assesses ministerial accountability.

This text presents a selection of essays and speeches written between 1890 and 1930 by Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey. The work analyses African-American political thought, defining the options confronting African Americans in the 20th century.

This edited collection examines the changing role of the legal profession as experts in the context of European Union policy-making. Drawing on theoretical and empirical research and the idea of law as a social and political practice, this socio-legal work brings together a group of legal scholars and political scientists to investigate how lawyers, through the deployment of their expertise and knowledge, act as experts in matters of EU related policy-making at the national, European and international levels. It provides new theoretical viewpoints and untold stories from legal experts themselves, promotes an evolving definition of what constitutes legal expertise and what shapes legal experts in a time when experts are in equal measure both revered and ignored, and introduces new critical voices in the field of EU socio-legal studies.

Compares modern U.S. politics with the postwar system and discusses presidential elections, special interest groups, the bureaucracy, and political parties.