Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies [Paperback]

Clinton Rossiter (Author), William J. Quirk (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

How should the United States be governed during times of crisis? Definitely not as we are in times of tranquility, asserts this classic study. The war on terrorism is a case in point. The horrors of terror attacks on the United States have forced Americans to accept legislative changes that might be unthinkable at other times. The "inescapable truth," Clinton Rossiter wrote in his classic study of modern democracies in crisis, is that "No form of government can survive that excludes dictatorship when the life of the nation is at stake."

In an insightful introduction, William Quirk places Rossiter's work in the context of the new century and the current war on terrorism. Constitutional Dictatorship examines the experiences with emergency government of four large modern democracies-the United States, Great Britain, France, and the German Republic of 1919-1933-to see what unusual powers and procedures these constitutional states employed in their various periods of national trial.

Rossiter's concept of a "constitutional dictatorship" may be more shocking today than when he wrote the book. Based on a thoroughgoing study of the use of emergency powers in modern democracies, he determined that the facts of history demonstrate that there are occasions when constitutional dictatorship has served as an indispensable factor in maintaining constitutional democracy. Supreme Court doctrine does not recognie any implied presidential power to suspend the Constitution. However, Rossiter believes this view to be inaccurate. He defends his view through analysis of presidential action during the Civil War, World I, the Depression, and World War II, arguing that when the normal rules are not sufficient other rules take hold.

Rossiter proposed specific criteria by which to judge the worth and propriety of any resort to constitutional dictatorship. He provides a clear roadmap for both citien and Congress to judge an executive's actions. In his introduction, Quirk notes that Rossiter's concept-the rapid return to normal government when the crisis is concluded-rests on a premise that appears to be missing today. This volume will be essential reading for those interested in politics, constitutional law, and American history.

Clinton Rossiter (1917-1970) Cornell, A.B. 1939, Princeton, Ph.D., 1942, held Cornell's John L. Senior Chair in Government and was the author of numerous books, including The Supreme Court and the Commander-in-Chief (1951); Conservatism in America (1955); The American Presidency (1956); Marxism: The View from America (1960); and The American Quest 1790-1860 (1971).

William J. Quirk is Class of 1959 Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of South Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

 

William J. Quirk is professor of law at the School of Law of the University of South Carolina. His earlier work on this subject appeared in Society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers; Revised edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765809753
• ISBN-13: 978-0765809759
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #662,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Reissue, September 18, 2006

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Signs and Wonders "Signs and Wonders" (South Carolina and the Global South) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies (Paperback)

Following the terror attacks of September 11, it seemed only a matter of time until Clinton Rossiter's classic comparative study of emergency powers, Constitutional Dictatorship (1948), would regain prominence in the United States. Rossiter's book a time the best historical resource on emergency powers and despite a flood of commentaries remains the best. Even in the months following the attacks, after a short season of citation by commentators across the American ideological spectrum, bandied about as a guide to crisis the book was soon reissued with a new introduction and a provocative new dust-jacket depicting the burning remnants of the World Trade Center set against an image of the U.S. Constitution, defacing the inscription "We the People." Rossiter's warning that "all uses of emergency powers and all readjustments in the organization of the government" should be "in pursuit of constitutional or legal requirements" resonates today in the open-ended "War on Terror." Indeed, considering the frequency of the exercise of emergency powers around the world, Rossiter's book has remained relevant in the half century since it was first published. Its pioneering methodology of comparative constitutionalism as a framework for studying emergency governance was actually well ahead of its time. The examples Rossiter drew upon have become the classic case studies: the Roman Republic and four modern democracies. Among other things, Rossiter's work is a classic defense of domestic formalism, drawing more often than not on the Republican tradition.

However, in other ways, Constitutional Dictatorship whose first edition put its cogent arguments to rest in 1948 reappears today as an intellectual Rip Van Winkle; the world it awakes in today would scarcely be recognizable to the author. COntinuous with Rossiter's republican ethic that law provides particular forms of agonism to slow down governments so they can and attend to a plurality of interests, a rigorous sequel -and not simply a repackaging of Rossiter's arguments-- would also have to grapple with new locations of power and governance, in particular a host of international institutions that interact with national governments in situations of national emergency.
These would include treaty regimes concerning the law of war and human rights law. Still, Rossiter's Constitutional Dictatorship is the most sophisticated account of emergency governments and self-regulatory emergency governance that we have in the period before the United Nations system and modern international law made its presence felt. As such, it provides a snapshot of how it was possible to conceive of emergency governance in this post-Westphalian/ pre- San Franciscan international order.