Rethinking the Finality of and Democracy in the American Constitution

Is the United States Constitution a sacred and absolute document? Dahl (2001) argued that the Constitution is not perfect or permanent in his book, How Democratic is the American Constitution. He stresses that his main aim is not to propose that the Constitution must be amended, but to facilitate readers in changing how they think about the Constitution. In order to help people rethink the Constitution, Dahl (2001) explained the limitations of its Framers and the Constitution’s not widely known undemocratic aspects. The strengths of the book are its ethos or reputation of the author that establishes his credibility, informal writing style that can appeal to more people, its consideration of a number of undemocratic aspects of the Constitution that makes it open to changes, and its recognition of the limitations of the Framers, while its weaknesses are its lack of further depth of discussion on the undemocratic aspects of the Constitution and it does not provide sufficient empirical evidence on what democratic aspects of a democratic republican will work for the unique and diverse values, beliefs, and practices of Americans.

When someone even thinks, moreover, asserts, that the American Constitution is flawed, it may be safe to imagine numerous Americans who would spring up in its defense, but Dahl (2001) knew how to appease them because he is not new or unknowledgeable to the topic given his education and expertise in political science. Dahl (2001) has ethos by virtue of his background and writing quality output on the field of political science. Hertzberg (2002) of The New Yorker described the merits of Dahl (2001) as an eminent political analyst. Dahl (2001) happens to be the “Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science” a...

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... to democracy and Constitutional concepts in the American setting. It is a book that imposes thought-provoking questions about democracy and the American republic. Moreover, Dahl helps people re-imagine their political values and aspirations, so that they can examine their political documents and systems. As a result, they become more active thinkers, who will, eventually, become active political actors of modern times.

References

Dahl, R.A. (2001). How democratic is the American Constitution? New Haven: Yale University Press.

Gibson, A. (2003). Desacralizing the Constitution. Review of Politics, 65(1), 131-135.

Hertzberg, H. (2002, July 29). Framed up: What the Constitution gets wrong. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/07/29/020729crbo_books

Main, T.J. (2011). The Constitution and its critics. Policy Review, (167), 3-18.