Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

Is the United States a proper member of the Community of Democracies?

By Jack M. Balkin

Anne Applebaum had an interesting column in the Washington Post, tellingly titled "Democracy in Trouble," detailing a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Krakow, Poland, on the 10th anniverary of the Community of Democracies founded by Madeline Albright. As Applebaum notes, the Bush Administration was not much interested in it--though support for "democracy" was a major theme of that Administration, and one of the former-President's favorite books was Natan Sharanksy's ode to democracy--and it has basically been revived by Poland. I have no desire to question the Secretary of State's commitment to democracy. Rather, as could be easily predicted by anyone familiar with my oeuvre, I continue to be amazed--and, of course, often enraged--by the complacent assumption that the United States is the kind of democracy that other countries should try to emulate. It's not only that the Constitution under which we operate is so distinctly anti-democratic in so many ways (which helps to explain the fact that no country that has drafted a constitution over the past four decades has looked to the US Constitution for inspiration), but, as noted in my previous post, that a number of the American states are truly dysfunctional in their inability to exercise effective governance. Could anyone, regardless of his/her place on the political spectrum, be optimistic about the American future, that the country is indeed "headed in the right direction"? The difference between me and most people who read Balkinization is that my pessimism derives from our Constitution more than the particular defects of given political "leaders," whether one thinks of Presient Obama, Sarah Palin, or anyone in between.

It may be, of course, that the majority of the American public is schizophrenic (or teenager-like) in assuming that one can have public services without having to pay for them through taxes, which raises yet more fundamental questions about whether "democracy" should be our mantra. In any event, it would be refreshing if Joe Biden, who has just lectured Iraqis on the need to "reason together" and overcome their ideological divisions, would turn his formidable talents (I am not being sarcastic) to considering whether the United States does not itself need fundametnal reform. After all, early in January 2011, he may well be asked to rule on whether the Senate can change theh filibuster by a simple majority vote. What he decides may well be be the single most important act of his vice presidency (as distinguished from the "advice," which is without legal force, that he may be giving the President.

Full post as published by Balkinization on July 07, 2010 (boomark / email).