POLS 102 Lecture 13: Pols 102 Class 13
Document Summary
Some opponents, such as lazare (1996) and putley (1997), see the constitution as an obstacle to social reform and as a mechanism for government inefficiency, far from promoting adaptation to a changing america. They note that no other western democracies have modeled their government designs on america"s, the reason being that american design appears as a" gridlock" recipe. For so many veto points and checks and balances, legislative changes, particularly at federal level, are incredibly hard to accomplish. To others, this means that government actually refuses to provide the requisite policy responses to urgent issues that were not foreseen in the eighteenth century: environmental degradation, economic collapse or provision of health care. The constitution has stopped, or at least slowed down, the possibility of far- reaching social, cultural, and political reform for many americans. The constitution is essentially conservative on that reading.
