Parchment and Politics: The Positive Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment
Parchment and Politics: The Positive Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment
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羊皮纸与政治：宪法承诺的积极谜题
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发表时间：
2010
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通讯作者：
Daryl J. Levinson
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作者：
Daryl J. Levinson
宪政经常被比作尤利西斯为了抵抗塞勒斯的致命召唤而把自己绑在桅杆上。但是，什么是相当于尤利西斯的绳索，可能使一个政治社区约束自己的宪法规则？宪政的积极谜题在于解释强大的政治行为者愿意和有能力做出可持续的承诺，遵守和维护宪法规则，即使这些规则阻碍了他们的直接利益。例如，为什么一位受欢迎的总统会选择遵守宪法的限制，进行他和支持他的国家的大多数人认为是一场至关重要的战争，以维护联邦或打击恐怖主义；拯救国家免受大萧条或金融体系崩溃的影响？这个谜题概括为任何形式的跨期政治承诺是如何可能的。按照类似的思路，我们可能会想，一个政治社会如何能够可信而持久地承诺偿还债务，拒绝救助财务上鲁莽的银行，或者避免战争。在法律和政治背景下回答这类问题的标准方法是援引各种稳定的“机构”作为可靠的承诺机制。法院可以强制执行宪法规范。联邦制、三权分立、民主和授权等结构性安排可能会提高政治变革的成本，或者堆积有利于特定结果的甲板。当然，宪法通常被塑造成某种程度上自我执行的政治承诺的担保人。但这种解释方法只是将谜题推回到这些机构如何变得不受社会政治修订或凌驾的影响。我们为什么要期望机构承诺机制比它们应该促进的一级承诺更稳定呢？在法律和社会科学中，理解宪法和其他机构如何能够有效地约束政治，仍然是一个根本性的重要理论挑战。本文论证了这一挑战的普遍性，并探讨了其对宪法法律和理论的影响。该条还试图通过巩固一套机制，使法律和政治安排--主要包括宪法制度、政府宪法结构和司法审查--能够根深蒂固地反对反对和变革，从而在解释如何以及在什么情况下可以成功地作出法律和政治承诺方面取得进展。
Constitutionalism is often analogized to Ulysses binding himself to the mast in order to resist the fatal call of the Sirens. But what is the equivalent of Ulysses’s ropes that might enable a political community to bind itself to constitutional rules? The positive puzzle of constitutionalism lies in explaining the willingness and ability of powerful political actors to make sustainable commitments to abiding by and upholding constitutional rules even when these rules stand in the way of their immediate interests. Why, for example, would a popular President choose to abide by constitutional limitations on conducting what he and the majority of the country that supports him believe to be a vitally necessary war to preserve the Union or to fight terrorism; to save the country from the Great Depression or the collapse of the financial system? The puzzle generalizes to how intertemporal political commitments of any sort are possible. We might wonder, along similar lines, how a political community can credibly and durably commit itself to repaying its debts, refusing to bail out financially reckless banks, or refraining from war. A standard approach to answering such questions in both legal and political contexts is to invoke stable “institutions” of various kinds as reliable commitment mechanisms. Courts can enforce constitutional norms. Structural arrangements like federalism, separation of powers, democracy, and delegation can raise the cost of political change or stack the deck in favor of particular outcomes. And of course constitutions are commonly cast as somehow self-enforcing guarantors of political commitments. But this explanatory approach just pushes the puzzle back to how these institutions become impervious to socio-political revision or override. Why should we expect institutional commitment devices to be any more stable than the first-order commitments they are supposed to facilitate? Understanding how constitutions and other institutions can effectively constrain politics remains a fundamentally important theoretical challenge in law and the social sciences. This article demonstrates the generality of that challenge and explores its implications for constitutional law and theory. The article also attempts to make progress in explaining how, and in what contexts, successful legal and political commitment may be possible by consolidating a set of mechanisms through which legal and political arrangements - prominently including systems of constitutional law, the constitutional structure of government, and judicial review - can become entrenched against opposition and change.