Tensions of American Federal Democracy: Fragmentation of the State

Cover
Endorsement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1: Introduction: Exploring the limited state
	The US government in comparison
	Democratic government
	Federal government
	An ambivalent polity
	Outline and approach to the study
	Approach to the study
	Notes
	References
Chapter 2: Towards an analytical framework
	Institutions and ideas: theoretical foundations
		History and institutions
			How history matters
			Mechanisms causing continuity and change
			Between critical junctures and gradual change
			Summary
	Ideas and institutions
		Social construction
		Rationality and its bounds
		Appropriateness and institutional logics
		Ideational institutionalism
		Summary: the complex dynamics of institutions and ideas
	Framing federalism and democracy: linkages and dynamics
		Dynamic institutionalism
		Federal and democratic government
			The democratic governmental dimension
			Federal governmental dimension
		Coupling between federalism and democracy
		Ideas, institutions, and democratic federal dynamics
	Notes
	References
Chapter 3: Constitutional immanence in the USA
	The concept and evolution of a regulative idea
		Emergent popular sovereignty as idea and precursor to the US case
		From fictive to regulative idea
	The US constitutional quandary
		Two foundational legacies
		Forging the US Constitution: between the Convention and conventions
		Religious dynamics as critical-institutional and ideational-antecedent
		A preliminary foray into constitutional politics in the USA
	The original and the living Constitution
		Between living and original approaches
		Text immanence of constitutional meaning
		Summary: the Constitution as a matter of interpretation
	Notes
	References
Chapter 4: The state of American federal democracy
	A constitutional overture
	The contours of the American state
		Towards a state synopsis
		The states in the USA
		US statehood
		Between a state uniting people and a Union of states
		Evolution of state limiting and state building in the USA
		A preface on the dynamics and constants of US federal democracy
	Notes
	References
Chapter 5: Democratic divided government
	US presidential and divided government
	An ‘old’ separation-of-powers arrangement
	A tale of two parties
	Electoral linkages, political parties, and compound majoritarianism
	The coupling of institutional fragmentation with partisan polarization
	Notes
	References
Chapter 6: Multilevel divided government
	Federalism by separating power but compounding the republic
	The onset of cooperative federalism under a dual federal framework
	Between cooperative and coercive federalism
		Friction, adaptation, and the compounding of fragmentation
	Summary
	Notes
	References
Chapter 7: Politics of the Constitution
	Constitutional dynamics between contestation and veneration, tension and distension
	The adoration of the founding and constitutional veneration
	Immanent interpretation between change and continuity, contestation and impoverishment
	Constitutional immanence and the competing constitutions
	Summary
	Notes
	References
Chapter 8: Conclusion: The decoupled polity
	Lessons from a peculiar case: toward a disjointed decision-making trap
	References
Epilogue
	References
Index