Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule
Melissa Schwartzberg
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Description for Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule
Paperback. Examines the history underlying the use of supermajority voting rules and offers a critique of their ability to remedy the defects of majority decision making. Series: Cambridge Studies in the Theory of Democracy. Num Pages: 248 pages. BIC Classification: JPA. Category: (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 216 x 144 x 15. Weight in Grams: 306.
Supermajority rules govern many features of our lives in common: from the selection of textbooks for our children's schools to residential covenants, from the policy choices of state and federal legislatures to constitutional amendments. It is usually assumed that these rules are not only normatively unproblematic but necessary to achieve the goals of institutional stability, consensus, and minority protections. In this book, Melissa Schwartzberg challenges the logic underlying the use of supermajority rule as an alternative to majority decision making. She traces the hidden history of supermajority decision making, which originally emerged as an alternative to unanimous rule, and highlights ... Read more
Supermajority rules govern many features of our lives in common: from the selection of textbooks for our children's schools to residential covenants, from the policy choices of state and federal legislatures to constitutional amendments. It is usually assumed that these rules are not only normatively unproblematic but necessary to achieve the goals of institutional stability, consensus, and minority protections. In this book, Melissa Schwartzberg challenges the logic underlying the use of supermajority rule as an alternative to majority decision making. She traces the hidden history of supermajority decision making, which originally emerged as an alternative to unanimous rule, and highlights ... Read more
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2013
Publisher
Cambridge University Press United Kingdom
Number of pages
264
Condition
New
Series
Cambridge Studies in the Theory of Democracy
Number of Pages
248
Place of Publication
Cambridge, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780521124492
SKU
V9780521124492
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 4 to 8 working days
Ref
99-2
About Melissa Schwartzberg
Melissa Schwartzberg is an Associate Professor of Politics at New York University. She previously taught at George Washington University and Columbia University. She received her AB from Washington University, St Louis in 1996, and her PhD in 2002 from New York University. She is the author of Democracy and Legal Change (Cambridge, 2007) and of articles in leading journals including ... Read more
Reviews for Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule
“As she did in her previous, remarkable book on entrenchment provisions, Democracy and Legal Change, Melissa Schwartzberg, in Counting the Many, shows us how little we really understand a widespread practice in modem constitutionalism, in this case supermajoritarianism. Combining sharp rational analysis and subtle historical research, Schwartzberg illuminates the origins of vote counting and the decision rules that developed along ... Read more