The Politics of Constitutional Reform in North America

1. Front Matter

   Pages 1-8

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2. Constitutional Reform — Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

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   2. Constitutional Reform as Process

      • Rainer-Olaf Schultze

      Pages 11-31

   3. Constitutionalism and the Transformation of the State

      • Petra Dobner

      Pages 33-44

3. Constitutional Governance — Institutional Structures, Actors and Policy Fields

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-45

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   2. Changes in the Legislative and Executive Branches

      1. The Politics of Constitutional Reform in Canada and the United States

         • R. Kent Weaver

         Pages 47-81

      2. Parliamentary Government in Canada: Institutional Stability and Constitutional Reform in the Legislative and Executive Branches

         • Steffen Schneider

         Pages 83-116

   3. Trends in Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations

      1. Federalism and Constitutional Politics: A Theoretical Perspective

         • Roland Sturm

         Pages 117-128

      2. Courting Devolution: The U.S. Supreme Court and Contemporary American Federalism

         • Timothy J. Conlan

         Pages 129-148

      3. Non-Constitutional Reform and the Canadian Federation: The Only Game in Town

         • Harvey Lazar, John McLean

         Pages 149-175

   4. Budgeting and Constitutional Politics

      1. Regulation, Taxation or Inaction? Budgetary Politics, Institutional Reform and American “Judicialism”

         • Markus M. Müller

         Pages 177-186

      2. Canadian Federal Budgeting: Imaginative Responses and Troublesome Confusions

         • Allan Maslove

         Pages 187-200

   5. Minorities and Constitutional Politics

      1. Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation — Minorities and the Supreme Court

         • Michael Dreyer

         Pages 201-225

      2. Canada — A Pioneer in the Management of Constitutional Politics in a Multi-national Society

         • Peter H. Russell

         Pages 227-234

4. Constitutional Jurisprudence — Does it Stimulate or Prevent Reform?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 235-235

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   2. Change is a Sometimes Thing: Constitutional Jurisprudence in the United States

      • Martin Edelman

      Pages 237-254

   3. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Product and Catalyst of Socio-Political Change in Canada

      • Martin Thunert

      Pages 255-272

   4. Conclusion

      • Roland Sturm

      Pages 273-279

5. Back Matter

   Pages 281-288

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In October 1999, some fifteen academic experts and government practitio­ ners from Germany and North America gathered for two days at the Uni ver­ sity of Augsburg to discuss the topic of "Constitutional Reform and Consti­ tutional Jurisprudence in Canada and the United States." The present volume documents the results of that conference, a collaborative effort of the De­ partment of Political Science, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and the Institute for Canadian Studies, University of Augsburg. In organizing this workshop, we were guided by two basic sets of ideas and assumptions: First, all "established" democracies are regularly confron­ ted with the need to adjust their constitutional order to changes in their envi­ ronment lest democratic stability be transformed into rigidity; in many wes­ tern nations, including Canada and the United States, developments such as the crisis of the Keynesian welfare-state or the emergence of increasingly heterogeneous, postmodern societies have ushered in an era of heightened, yet not always successful constitutional reform activity. Secondly, however, there is no unique path towards, or model of, an "optimal" constitutional order, however defined; rather, constitutional reform processes, their under­ Iying normative principles and their outcomes are strongly path and context­ dependent. Therefore, the participants of the workshop and authors of this volume were asked to examine the specific preconditions, context, nature and impact of recent constitutional reform processes in the Uni ted States and Canada.

• Exekutive
• Föderalismus
• Gender
• Governance
• Haushalt
• Institution
• Policy
• Transformation
• Verfassung
• politics

• University of Augsburg, Germany

  Rainer-Olaf Schultze

• University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

  Roland Sturm

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