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Full-Text Articles in Law

Methodological Challenges In Comparative Constitutional Law, Vicki C. Jackson Jan 2010

Methodological Challenges In Comparative Constitutional Law, Vicki C. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My talk today, Methodological Challenges in Comparative Constitutional Law, has two parts. The first part focuses on the relationship between the purposes of comparison and the methodological challenges of comparison. The second part asks whether there are particular methodological challenges in comparative constitutional law as compared with other comparative legal studies.


Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective Of Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson Jan 2010

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 …