The Judicial Bookshelf

Two decades ago, in the summer of 1987, celebrations of the bicentennial of the United States Constitution were in high gear under the watchful eye of then recently retired Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who chaired the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution between 1985 and 1991. ¹ Numerous lectures, seminars, and conferences across the land made clear not only the role and value of what Chief Justice William Howard Taft once called “the ark of our covenant” ² in the life of the nation but also the central place the judiciary had long occupied in the political system, as state and national courts confronted vital questions of public policy perplexing and dividing the people. As that astute French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville first noted in 1835, the “American judge is dragged in spite of himself onto the political field . … There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.” ³ With the “right to declare laws unconstitutional,” he explained, the judge “cannot compel the people to make laws, but at least he can constrain them to be faithful to their own laws and to remain in harmony with themselves.” ⁴     

The Judicial Bookshelf

Change at the Supreme Court may be most visible and frequent in the progression of statutory and constitutional questions the Justices resolve collectively, but it may also be equally highlighted by an individual Justice's decision. This reality became plainly apparent in a letter that Justice John Paul Stevens sent to the White House on April 9, 2010, just eleven days shy of his 90^th birthday: “My dear Mr. President: Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court's next Term, I shall retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice … effective the next day after the Court rises for the summer recess this year.” ¹ His statement was dated almost a year after Justice David Souter dispatched a similar notice to President Obama on May 1, 2009, announcing his intention to leave the Bench. Thus, for the fifth time in as many years, the machinery of executive nomination and senatorial advice and consent for the High Court churned again.     

PEIRCE AND FOUCAULT ON TIME AND HISTORY: THE TASKS OF (DIS)CONTINUITY

Some have recognized an affinity between Pragmatist thought and that of Foucault, though this affinity is typically cashed out in terms of William James and John Dewey and not Charles Sanders Peirce. This article argues that bringing Foucault and Peirce into collaboration not only shows the relevance of Peirce for Foucault, and vice versa, but also enriches the thought of both thinkers—indeed, it also reveals important implications for the theory of history more generally. Specifically, the article crosses the Peircean concept of habit and the Foucauldian concept of practice (as it operates in the arenas of discourse, power, and self), ultimately decoding them in terms of an account of time that derives from Peirce and that gives a fundamental role to discontinuity. In this way the article shows how Peirce can provide Foucault with an account of time that buttresses and grounds his genealogical approach to history, while at the same time revealing how Foucault can provide Peirce with an account of history. The synergy between the two thinkers offers a way to think about the nature of history that goes beyond what each thinker individually provided.     

Rational,reverential or experimental? The politics of electoral reform in Oceania

Oceania, with the exception of New Zealand, has received little comparative attention in studies of electoral reform. This article uses evidence from Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Nauru, as well as New Zealand and Australia, in order to: understand the process of electoral reform at national and regional levels; examine variation in the process and consider whether theories of electoral reform from elsewhere apply to Oceania. It finds that electoral reform is a highly complex process that is influenced by the self-interest of parties, democratic values and diffusion.

除了新西兰,不大有人从比较选举改革的角度关注大洋洲。本文使用斐济、汤加、巴布亚新几内亚、瑙鲁以及新西兰和澳大利亚的资料,目的是在国家和地区的层面上理解选举改革的过程;探讨过程中的变异,并思考其他地方的选举改革理论是否适用于大洋洲。