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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective Of Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson
Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective Of Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson
Faculty Publications
Constitutional text and government action are at times discordant in important ways. This discrepancy occurs in both mature and emerging democracies. It can result in the underenforcement of constitutional norms and implicate the rule of law. When the constitutional norm involves the right to vote, the gap between constitutions and governance inevitably triggers concerns about democracy as well. There is rich and ample debate within American legal scholarship over the effect of the underenforcement of constitutional norms on the scope and meaning of the norm. The arguments generally fall into one of two camps. One strand of argument suggests that …
The Myth Of The Level Playing Field: Knowledge, Affect, And Repetition In Public Debate, Jeremy N. Sheff
The Myth Of The Level Playing Field: Knowledge, Affect, And Repetition In Public Debate, Jeremy N. Sheff
Faculty Publications
The industrialization of the channels and scale of communication has led some well-meaning reformers to try to regulate the ability of powerful private actors to leverage economic inequality into political inequality, particularly in the area of campaign finance. Such reform efforts are ostensibly intended to further the deliberative democratic ideal of rational, informed public decision making by preventing well-funded private interests from improperly influencing democratic debate and, by extension, political outcomes. This Article examines empirical findings in political science, psychology, and marketing and argues that, in the context of contemporary American society, the normative principles of deliberative democracy and formal …