How Democratic Is the American Constitution? — Political Equality and Constitutional Design
What should give a constitution democratic legitimacy: its historical endurance, or how well its institutions serve democratic values in the present?
Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.
Using How Democratic Is the American Constitution? by Robert A. Dahl as our lens, this Deep Dive examines the American constitutional system not as a finished blueprint, but as an evolving set of institutions shaped by eighteenth-century constraints, later democratic reforms, and political practices the Framers could not have anticipated.
Dahl argues that the…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.