American Factions : How the US Constitution Can End Extreme Partisanship

An ideal resource for readers concerned about America's divisive politics, this book explores the causes of political faction, the Constitution's limits on democratic excess, and the gradual erosion of those limits to highlight the importance of the Constitution's structural constraints on our present-day winner-takes-all politics.

Americans of all political stripes are becoming increasingly frustrated with the partisanship of present-day politics. Democrats and Republicans alike claim mandates on narrow margins of victory and are quick to condemn their opponents as enemies of the public good. The Framers of the Constitution understood that such divisions are rooted in the political factions inherent in democracy. Their solutions were federalism, the separation of powers, bicameralism, judicial review and other structural constraints on majority rule. Over the course of US history some of those constraints have been eroded as American politics have become more democratic and less respectful of the liberties and freedoms the Framers sought to protect. American Factions advocates for a renewed understanding of the problem of political factions and a restoration of the Constitution's limits to revive a politics of compromise and bipartisanship.