Essay example --

In comparison to parallel economically advanced democracies, the United States in particular is prone to uniquely adversarial and legalistic means of policy formulation and implementation, constructed by the process of judicial review. With the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, common law, or using precedent as the basis of judicial policy making, has been a staple for American society. This British adaptation to U.S. lawmaking has evolved into an interest-driven persuasion tactic as opposed to statutory interpretation and democratic mechanisms. Americans frequently rely on legal threats and lawsuits, in which the laws that pertain, generally, are more complicated and prescriptive. In idealistic democratic models, the relative institutional relationships among the legislature, the executive state, and the courts. Yet, it is a false truth of the current U.S. governing system, in which author Robert Kagan theorizes is due to the American way of law known as adversarial leg alism. Although a thesis in this form is hardly a new discussion, Kagan’s treatment of it ranges throughout the political spectrum, targeting both the atmosphere surrounding policy making as well as its political actors within. Kagan provides a chief explanation for adversarial legalism as a mode of policy making, implementation, and dispute resolution characterized by frequent resort to highly adversarial legal interests, that conclusively infiltrate American democracy and ironically isolate branches of government, discrediting its merit of freedom and equality. Through this examination of politics, it is apparent that the system is at fault, perhaps inevitably, to the continuously growing problem of fragmented government that align with various other... ... and reform. Yet, it is in my opinion that his article is of such significance because of its logistic explanation of such frequent and high volume Court case reforms. Author Mark Graber in The Lessons of Dred Scott, claimed that decision rendered by Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney in 1865 was unavoidable, simply because the decision was consistent with the times of the era (Graber, p.7). This conditionality of politics concerning political environments is evident in Kagan as well, providing both political scientists and students alike with the knowledge that Courts do and often will act not only for the majority, but also more explicitly towards the persuasion tactics of every outlet of both private and public political participation, which provides a necessary and comprehensive evaluation of the American way of law unknown to many, including myself until today.