A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice

Assessing Liberal Democracy in Times of Rising Populism and Illiberalism

Michel Rosenfeld

Provides a systematic account of the central role of distributive justice in the normative legitimation of liberal constitutions
Establishes links between the philosophical, jurisprudential, and constitutional handling of key theories of distributive justice
Defends the thesis that normative pluralism leads to the conception of constitutional justice best suited to overcome the standstill between liberalism and tribalism

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice

Assessing Liberal Democracy in Times of Rising Populism and Illiberalism

Michel Rosenfeld

Description

In recent years, liberal constitutionalism has come under sharp attack. Globalization has caused huge disparities in wealth, identity-based alienation triggered by mass migration, and accompanying erosions of democracy. Liberal populists have also adapted the framework of liberal institutionalism, masking their aim to subvert its core values. These developments bring the links between justice and the constitution to the fore, particularly concerning distributive justice in its three dimensions of redistribution, recognition, and representation.

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice provides a systematic account of the central role of distributive justice in the normative legitimation of liberal constitutions. The requirements of distributive justice are highly contested, and constitutions are susceptible to influencing those they govern. By drawing on Rawls' insight that distributive justice calls for "constitutional essentials", Rosenfeld advances the thesis that liberal constitutions must incorporate certain "justice essentials".

This book is divided into three sections. Part one examines the current legal, economic, political and ideological developments that pose challenges to the normative viability of liberal constitutionalism. Part two offers a rereading of philosophical and jurisprudential literature that sheds crucial light on the relationship between constitution and justice. Finally, part three makes a case for using a thoroughly pluralistic approach in the quest for a constitution's justice essentials.

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice

Assessing Liberal Democracy in Times of Rising Populism and Illiberalism

Michel Rosenfeld

Introduction: Liberal Constitutional Democracy, its Illiberal Challengers, and the Question of Distributive Justice
PART ONE: NEW CHALLENGES AND THREATS
1:Disembodied Law, Reinvigorated Religion, and Tribal Politics
2:Local versus Global, Material Well-Being, States of Stress, and the Erosion of Justice
PART TWO: REVISITING AND RECONFIGURING THE PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDING OF LIBERAL CONSTITUTIONALISM'S IDEAL OF JUSTICE
3:Confronting the Gulf Between Law and Solidarity: Kelsen Encounters Freud
4:Law Redux: Schmitt, CLS, and the Drift to Politics; From Posner Back to Marx and the Absorption of Law into Economics
5:Kantian Universalism Reframed for a Post-Totalitarian Age: The Legacy of Rawls, Habermas and Dworkin
6:Tragic Deconstruction Set Against the Impenetrable Singular and Reconstruction as Spectacle and Administration: From Derrida to Agamben
PART THREE: BUILDING A COMMONLY SHARED BASIS TOWARD A PLURALIST INCLUSIVIST CONSTITUTION
7:The Dialectics of Comprehensive Pluralism: Approaching the Justice Essentials from the Middle
8:Justice Essentials Minima and Comprehensive Pluralism's Fixed Core Minimum Set Against its Plural Maximum
Conclusion

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice

Assessing Liberal Democracy in Times of Rising Populism and Illiberalism

Michel Rosenfeld

Author Information

Michel Rosenfeld, University Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy and Sydney L. Robins Professor of Human Rights, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

Michel Rosenfeld is the University Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy, Justice Sydney L. Robins Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Program on Global and Comparative Constitutional Theory at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He teaches in the areas of legal philosophy and US and comparative constitutional law. He has lectured throughout the world and is the author of numerous books, which have been translated into eleven foreign languages. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (2000-2014) and the president of the International Association of Constitutional Law (1999-2004).

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice

Assessing Liberal Democracy in Times of Rising Populism and Illiberalism

Michel Rosenfeld

Reviews and Awards

"The book as a whole is one of great erudition. More importantly, it does make a valid contribution to the case for securing the future of liberal democracies through the strength of their constitutions." - David Glass, consultant solicitor at Excello Law, The Law Society Gazette

"As the threat to liberal constitutionalism has become increasingly ubiquitous, the urgency of an appropriate response is glaringly palpable. The challenge extends beyond the need to counter the danger posed by malignly intended authoritarians, but at least as much to well-intended constitutionalists who lack the intellectual resources to defend what needs to be secured. And so, we must be grateful to Michel Rosenfeld for providing the rich theoretical perspective within which the effort to comprehend and support what is fundamental for the survival of the liberal democratic constitutional project. Indeed, in this moment of genuine peril for that project's future, his magisterial account of constitutionalism's justice essentials is essential reading." - Gary J. Jacobsohn, Malcolm Macdonald Professor of Constitutional and Comparative Law in the Department of Government and Professor of Law at the University of Texas at Austin

"An indispensable analysis of our current crisis by one of our most literate exponents of comparative constitutional law and jurisprudence. " - Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School