In Defense of Legislatures

Publication Year
2000

Type

Journal Article
Abstract

In his recent works, Jeremy Waldron is concerned with developing a vision of liberal democracy separated from the legal constitutionalism of the American model. Waldron's liberalism is characterized by a legislative rather than judicial supremacy. Although Waldron valuably centers our attention on the inescapable nature of reasonable disagreement over fundamental political questions, including the content of rights and the structure of democracy, he pays insufficient attention to basic aspects of institutionalized politics. In particular, Waldron does not consider the ways in which institutional form might matter to political outcomes. As a consequence, he underestimates the ways in which legislative outcomes might diverge from the popular will and the ways in which courts and legislatures may be distinctive institutions for reaching different constitutional goals.

Journal
Political Theory
Volume
28
Issue
5
Pages
690-702