Deeply troubled by the US Constitution's inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned dean of Berkeley law school, came to the sobering conclusion that the nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy. Pointing out that just fifteen of the 11,848 amendments proposed since 1789 have passed, Chemerinsky contends that the very nature of our polarisation results from the Constitution's "bad bones", which have created a government that no longer works or has the confidence of the public. Yet political Armageddon can still be avoided, Chemerinsky writes, if a new constitutional convention is empowered to replace the Constitution of 1787, much as the Founding Fathers replaced the outdated Articles of Confederation. If this isn't possible, Americans must give serious thought to forms of secession-including a United States structured like the European Union-based on a recognition that what divides the United States is, in fact, greater than what unites it.

About the Author
Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. The author of Presumed Guilty, The Conservative Assault on the Constitution, and The Case Against the Supreme Court, among many other works, he lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews
"Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, pushes the tradition of constitutional criticism to new heights with 'No Democracy Lasts Forever.' In this brief mix of political commentary and legal analysis, he confidently argues that the time has come to replace the Constitution entirely. His work provides a compelling critique of the current state of American democracy and its foundational document, revealing tensions within the Constitution that are often overlooked by the general public." -- Samuel Goldman - Wall Street Journal
"Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley's law school, still seemed to place considerable faith in the Constitution, pleading with fellow progressives in his book "We the People" "not to turn their back on the Constitution and the the courts. By contrast, "No Democracy Lasts Forever" is markedly pessimistic. Asserting that the Constitution, which is famously difficult to amend, has put the country "in grave danger," Chemerinsky lays out what would need to happen for a new constitutional convention - and, in the book's more somber moments, he entertains the possibility of secession... He hopes that any divorce, if it comes, will be peaceful... The prospect of secession sounds extreme, but in suggesting that the Constitution could hasten the end of American democracy, Chemerinsky is far from alone." -- Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times
"Chemerinsky does make, forcefully, valid points... he's probably right that, in a highly polarized electorate like ours, we are apt to see this happen fairly regularly. The problem is not so much that the wrong person wins as that the public loses faith in the process. " -- Louis Menand - The New Yorker



Book Information
ISBN 9781324091585
Author Erwin Chemerinsky
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 477g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 160mm * 20mm