The Global Rise of Judicial Review Since 1945

Abstract

Professor Bruce Ackerman's new book, Revolutionary Constitutions: Charismatic Leadership and the Rule of Law,1 Volume I, is a monumental contribution to the nascent field of Comparative Constitutional Law. It is the best and only theoretical treatment of the subject it covers, and the book contains an enormous amount of new research and writings in English of the countries it covers which include: India, South Africa, Italy, France, Poland, Israel, Myanmar, and Iran. It is an invaluable contribution to the field and an exemplary work of scholarship.

Professor Ackerman's book explains how twentieth century revolutions in the countries he studies led to the constitutionalization of charisma-borrowing the terminology of Max Weber. Ackerman explains that revolutionary leaders in the countries he discusses in Volume I chose to write constitutions, thus making permanent the charismatic power that they had at Time 1 as revolutionaries. He then notes that actors much later on at Time 2 in those countries were bound and controlled by the written constitutions that revolutionary leaders had entrenched at Time 1.

Professor Ackerman argues that there are three separate paths that modern constitutions have followed since 1945. The first path, which is the sole path discussed in Volume I, is the mobilization of a mass movement party by a charismatic leader who leads a charismatic mass movement to overthrow the prior undemocratic and repressive regime and to institute a new regime whereby the charismatic leader constitutionalizes and makes enduring his and his movement's charisma. The second path, which will be discussed in Volume II, occurs when powerful elites construct a constitution at Time 1, as happened in Japan and West Germany after World War II, and that elite-written constitution then becomes an enduring document, which people follow and which has legitimacy at Time 2. The third path, which will be discussed in Volume III, occurs when a constitution evolves over a long period of time at Time 1, which has happened in the United Kingdom, in Canada, and in Australia. These constitutions are followed and enjoy legitimacy at Time 2 in those respective countries.