Political Science

[close] Why do courts have different impacts on same-sex marriage policy? Using a combination of original and publicly available data, Hume shows that democratic innovations like judicial elections and initiative amendment procedures shape judicial impact. "Courthouse democracy" influences the behavior of state judges, the reactions of the public to state court decisions, and the long-term policy consequences of these decisions, including the passage of state constitutional amendments. Hume concludes that judges are capable of producing meaningful social change, and protecting minority rights, only when they have the institutional resources they need to stand against popular opinion.

Features:

•Provides a clear engaging background about recent same-sex marriage cases and theories of judicial impact.

•Assesses the impact of state courts using cutting edge data analysis.

•Includes numerous tables with statistics about the same-sex marriage cases, which readers can incorporate into their own teaching and research.
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In his bestselling book THE WORLD WITHOUT US, Alan Weisman considered how the Earth could heal and even refill empty niches if relieved of humanity's constant pressures. Behind that groundbreaking thought experiment was his hope that we would be inspired to find a way to add humans back to this vision of a restored, healthy planet-only in harmony, not mortal combat, with the rest of nature.

But with a million more of us every 4½ days on a planet that's not getting any bigger, and with our exhaust overheating the atmosphere and altering the chemistry of the oceans, prospects for a sustainable human future seem ever more in doubt. For this long awaited follow-up book, Weisman traveled to more than 20 countries to ask what experts agreed were the probably the most important questions on Earth-and also the hardest: How many humans can the planet hold without capsizing? How robust must the Earth's ecosystem be to assure our continued existence? Can we know which other species are essential to our survival? And, how might we actually arrive at a stable, optimum population, and design an economy to allow genuine prosperity without endless growth?

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