Law and the Protection of Democracy

Highly topical collection of innovative essays on the protection of democracy by eminent contributors from the judiciary, the practicing legal profession, the academy, and the realm of journalism.


With international safeguards for democracy showing signs of fragility as they come under various forms of attack, the vitality of the legal imagination will be essential to the future of the democratic rule of law. This collection of essays undertakes an innovative and timely assessment of the legal system's capacity for self-renewal. In its focus on law as a creative project in the service of democracy, the volume honors Alfred C. Aman Jr., a distinguished law professor, administrator, jazz musician, and scholar. Aman's extensive body of work includes farsighted, and ultimately optimistic, writings drawing attention to the potential of law reform as a means of addressing democracy deficits in the United States.

This book provides a timely, even urgent, analysis of current challenges to democracy, tackling questions of Constitutional interpretation, separation of Church and State, press freedom, personhood, admissibility of evidence, environmental protection, and legal education, among other issues. Beyond current problems, authors consider resources for renewal in unexpected places, for example, looking to mentorship in legal education as support for democratic imagination and to processes of interpretation, improvisation, and generative dissonance as exemplified in music in ways that are relevant to law. The essays relate to the United States and other jurisdictions that, like the US, have fought hard for their freedoms and democracy through law.

Edited by Yvonne Cripps. Contributors: Nathan D. Alder, Dan Cole, Lloyd Green, Carol Greenhouse, David Hamilton, Jay Krishnan, Tzu-Yi Lin, Christiana Ochoa, Aviva Orenstein, Arantxa Recarte, Lauren Robel, Landyn Rookard, Susan Williams, Elisabeth Zoller.

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