POLS 039. The Courts and American Democracy (TH)

What role should the courts play in a well-functioning democracy? From one perspective, the courts are an essential safeguard, securing fundamental rights and protecting vulnerable minorities. From another perspective, the courts can undermine democracy by affording unelected judges priority over the democratic public. These theoretical issues take a more concrete shape within the specific political and constitutional culture of the United States. Using the U.S. as our case study, we will think critically about the role of the judiciary in democracy. We shall read some American constitutional case law, while also exploring wider literature in philosophy of law, democratic theory, and American politics. We will focus on the judicial politics surrounding the Civil Rights movement, environmentalist movements, feminist movements, and LGBTQ movements. We will also focus on the judicial politics of economic regulation, immigration, national security, and elections/campaign finance. Throughout, we will ask tough questions about whether the courts truly can be mechanisms of democratic progress, or whether they are essentially conservative institutions that entrench the status quo. It is a course that therefore straddles the fields of political theory and American politics.
Social sciences
Catalog chapter: Political Science
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/department-political-science

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