The Constitutional Bind - by Aziz Rana (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Americans today are increasingly uneasy about the democratic weaknesses of their Federal Constitution. But for most of living memory that very Constitution has been idealized as near perfect. How could it be that this flawed system came to enjoy such intense veneration? In a striking reinterpretation of the American constitutional past, Aziz Rana connects the spread of a distinctive twentieth century American relationship to its founding document to another development rarely treated alongside it: the rise of the U.S. to global dominance. In the process, he highlights the role of constitutional veneration in shaping the terms of American power abroad, with ultimately transformative effects at home for narratives of nation and ideas of reform. In the process, Rana also explores the remarkably diverse array of movement activists-in Black, Indigenous, feminist, labor, and immigrant politics-that struggled to imagine a very different constitutional horizon, one grounded in equal and effective freedom for all and able to overcome the basic limitations of the consolidating legal-political system. These voices of opposition, including to the Constitution itself, have overwhelmingly been excised from constitutional memory. And yet they offer essential insights for making sense of our present difficulties, in which Americans find themselves bereft of the constitutional sureties that have long shaped collective life"--

Book Synopsis

An eye-opening account of how Americans came to revere the Constitution and what this reverence has meant domestically and around the world.

Some Americans today worry that the Federal Constitution is ill-equipped to respond to mounting democratic threats and may even exacerbate the worst features of American politics. Yet for as long as anyone can remember, the Constitution has occupied a quasi-mythical status in American political culture, which ties ideals of liberty and equality to assumptions about the inherent goodness of the text's design. The Constitutional Bind explores how a flawed document came to be so glorified and how this has impacted American life.

In a pathbreaking retelling of the American experience, Aziz Rana shows that today's reverential constitutional culture is a distinctively twentieth-century phenomenon. Rana connects this widespread idolization to another relatively recent development: the rise of US global dominance. Ultimately, such veneration has had far-reaching consequences: despite offering a unifying language of reform, it has also unleashed an interventionist national security state abroad while undermining the possibility of deeper change at home.

Revealing how the current constitutional order was forged over the twentieth century, The Constitutional Bind also sheds light on an array of movement activists--in Black, Indigenous, feminist, labor, and immigrant politics--who struggled to imagine different constitutional horizons. As time passed, these voices of opposition were excised from memory. Today, they offer essential insights.

Review Quotes

"What is to be done about the anti-democratic and minoritarian elements baked into the Constitution, from the Electoral College to the geographic apportionment of the US Senate?...In the face of an ascendant authoritarian regime that is attacking and degrading our institutions, amid extreme political polarization and mistrust, this represents a daunting proposition. But such a bottom-up project has never been more necessary. If we wish to bring about a society that extends meaningful freedom to all citizens at home, we must vigorously confront the perennial obstacles to revising America's political identity and practices. This, as Aziz Rana so brilliantly argues, is the project of our times."

-- "The California Review of Books"

"Rana argues that the contemporary focus on individual reforms has precluded meaningful thought about the quality of the Constitution in its totality as a foundation for democratic governance...This is a vital book that deserves the attention of anyone concerned with American political thought."-- "Perspectives on Politics"

"Weaving together legal, political, cultural, and intellectual history, Rana traces how the Constitution came to be the central pillar of political discourse and American identity over the course of the twentieth century...In this moment of constitutional ferment, his book should have a significant impact on constitutional history and theory, on law school pedagogy, and on activists and politicians hoping to build a more free and equal democracy."-- "Michigan Law Review"

"With The Constitutional Bind, Aziz Rana has performed an important service, bringing readers' attention to a vibrant strain of constitutional criticism over the nation's past century."-- "Reviews in American History"

"A meticulous account. . . .Rana shows that the standing accorded to the Constitution as an [authoritative expression] is an almost entirely twentieth century phenomenon."-- "Society"

"Aziz Rana's epic new book. . . .Rana has performed vital work to recover sources of radical constitutionalism swept aside by the tide of political development and ignored by those who are deeply invested in court-centered visions of order."-- "The New Rambler"

"Rana argues that Americans' worship of the Constitution has, in many ways, led to a politics and a government that fail to serve the fundamental wants and needs of the vast majority of the nation's population. . . .This book is meticulously researched, and the writing is top-quality."-- "Choice"

"One of the most important effects of The Constitutional Bind, in my view, is to unblock the current political imagination. . . .Such continuing faith in the Constitution is profoundly undermined by all the evidence Rana marshals regarding the antidemocratic nature of its central institutional structure and its historical and ongoing imbrication with racial hierarchy and imperialist projects."-- "Theory & Event"

"The Constitutional Bind offers one of the most important recent studies of the U.S. Constitution. . . .Ultimately, Rana raises a critical question: Can the existing constitutional framework accommodate the deep reforms needed to address today's political and social challenges? He suggests that moving beyond the Constitution may be necessary to build a truly democratic system capable of confronting the complexities of modern life."-- "Inside Higher Ed"

"In his bold new book, The Constitutional Bind, Rana argues against this tendency to 'take our problematic system as a given, and then struggle to patch especially egregious leaks.' Instead of focusing on patchwork measures, he encourages us to think more expansively."--Jennifer Szalai "The New York Times"

"Rana's skeptical historicism is important. His book is readable and lively, a kind of scholarly 'people's' history of the Constitution since 1887. If more people understood the complexity and multivalence of our constitutional tradition, that would be terrific. There is value in acknowledging that the Constitution is flawed, both as a document and as a set of historically unfolding social practices."--Noah Feldman "The Chronicle of Higher Education"

"The Constitutional Bind is essential to the struggle for a democratic constitution."-- "Democratic Left"

"The Constitutional Bind shows that the eventual triumph of constitutional veneration--and the consolidation of a political culture that treats skepticism as heresy--was bound up with the nation's rise as a global superpower. . . .These are major contributions, and the analysis that bears them out is dazzling in its intellectual acuity and empirical range."--David Pozen "Law and Political Economy"

"With his latest book, The Constitutional Bind, Aziz Rana continues unraveling our undemocratic constitutional regime. . . .The Constitutional Bind will be essential in developing the movement for democracy in the United States."-- "Cosmonaut"

"In his fascinating and powerful new book, Aziz Rana calls this faith in the Constitution's essential goodness 'creedal constitutionalism' and urges Americans to reject it, perhaps along with major parts of the Constitution itself. His book is much more than a progressive critique of Constitution worship: Rana presents a sweeping history of constitutional politics from the late 19th century to the present that reverses much of what Americans have learned to accept about the Constitution's meaning."--Jedediah Britton-Purdy "The Nation"

"Rana's book is a powerful and necessary rejoinder to constitutional law professors and their students, producing a lucid account of the counterfactuals discarded in the development of creedal constitutionalism. For historians, too, there is value in Rana's synthetic account. . . .The Constitutional Bind easily earns a place among the most vital works in constitutional law."-- "Law & History Review"

"The ambition of Rana's project is simultaneously diagnostic, expository, and reconstructive...a grand synthetic work of intellectual history...its very sense of overflowing detail and overlapping narratives relays the richness of American constitutional visions that have been lost."-- "Jotwell"

"An eye-opening and exhaustive look at the U.S. Constitution. [The Constitutional Bind] will reward readers' tenacity and enlighten academics, policymakers, and civic-minded Americans alike."-- "Library Journal"

"An accessible. . .work of legal and political history that speaks eloquently to democratic reform."-- "Kirkus"

"Illuminating in his excavation of several important critics of the Constitution whose voices have been stifled and given the uncertain health of the American constitutional order, Rana's book could not be arriving at a better time. It deserves wide readership and, more to the point, discussion."--Sanford Levinson author of "Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It)"

"Paradigm shifting. Rana argues that Americans' reverence for their Constitution is the cause of our problems--not the remedy--and he recovers histories of resistance and emancipation that provide resources for this generation's freedom struggles."--Reva Siegel Yale Law School

"This astonishing masterpiece divides the age that came before it from the new era that its appearance opens. Rana's refusal to look away from the disturbing reasons why an American culture of venerating the Constitution took hold will lead more people than ever before to rethink that devotion. No more important book about the Constitution has appeared in a hundred years--if ever."--Samuel Moyn author of "Liberalism against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times"

"The Constitutional Bind removes the cloak of veneration to reveal a tragically flawed document and generations of critics for whom the U.S. Constitution was an obstacle to democracy, a safeguard of white settler rule, and a barrier to universal freedom. In doing so, Rana has unearthed a dynamic history of alternative democratic movements and imaginaries within the U.S. and beyond. A genuine masterpiece."--Robin D. G. Kelley author of "Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination"

About the Author

Aziz Rana is the incoming J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law and Government at Boston College. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Dissent, n+1, the Boston Review, and Jacobin. He is the author of The Two Faces of American Freedom.