Reason, Consent, and the U.S. Constitution: Bruce Ackerman's "We the People"

If We the People is the answer, what is the question? On one level, Bruce Ackerman's "dualist" theory of the American political system represents a response within the discipline of constitutional jurisprudence to the "countermajoritarian difficulty" popularized by Alexander Bickel. According to this view, judicial review is antidemocratic because when the Supreme Court declares a law unconstitutional, "it thwarts the will of the representatives of the actual people of the here and now; it exercises control, not in behalf of the prevailing majority, but against it."2 Ackerman's dualist theory defends