电子游戏软件 Professor of Political Science 肯Kersch has won a major professional honor for his study of the development of conservative constitutional thought during the mid- and late-20th century.
Kersch被选为C. 赫尔曼·普里切特奖 from the 法律 and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association, given annually for the best book on law and courts published by a political scientist during the previous year.
该奖项表彰了克什2019年出版的《 保守派与宪法: Imagining Constitutional Restoration in the Heyday of American Liberalism, which examines how the intellectual and political trajectory of conservatives took shape on constitutional issues during 1954 to 1980—a period when they were largely sidelined in the American political arena.
肯Kersch
“获得普里切特奖是一项非凡的荣誉,克什说。, who joined the University in 2007 and from 2008-2012 served as founding director of the 电子游戏软件 Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy. “C. Herman Pritchett was a pioneering scholar of judicial politics at the University of Chicago and the University of California-Santa Barbara. 以他的名字命名的奖项对我工作的认可, by one of the American Political Science Association’s largest and most important sections, puts that work in the company of other leading studies in the field. It is immensely gratifying to have my scholarship considered in this company. 这是我职业生涯的一个亮点.”
In 保守派与宪法, Kersch discusses how conservatives sought to counter the institutional power liberals held for most of the 1950s, ’60s, 和70年代, 由国会和美国的多数派代表.S. 最高法院. 在此期间, 各种学术领域的保守派, 宗教, 业务, and other circles—from free market capitalists to evangelical Christians—found common cause in advocating and mobilizing for what they saw as constitutional restoration and redemption. This movement reached its apotheosis with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, which brought about a conservative realignment in American politics, and a conservative presence in the federal judiciary and the 最高法院.
根据Kersch的说法, 然而, since the 1980s there has been a “ritualized opposition” in legal thought between conservatives’ “originalism” and liberals’ “living constitutionalism” that has overshadowed the complex, 错综复杂的个性相互作用, 动机, 信仰, and 事件 which defined postwar conservative constitutionalism. He sees 保守派与宪法 as offering a fuller picture to conservatives and liberals alike of their respective views on the Constitution, 以及它们是如何随着时间发展的.
“不像很多关于保守宪法理论的书, mine does not treat originalism as the alpha and omega of postwar conservative constitutional thought. I present conservative originalism as a particular theory that emerged as the consensus view for a delimited period of time within a broader political movement. And I demonstrate that that thought extended well beyond originalism. Originalism emerged at a certain time and place in the history of the conservative legal movement to address particular questions to advance certain ends and serve certain movement purposes.”
This is the third honor from APSA for Kersch, a previous winner of the association’s Edward S. 考文奖和J. David Greenstone Prize from APSA’s 政治 and History Section. He also has received the Hughes-Gossett Award from the 最高法院 Historical 社会.
Kersch said one of the driving forces in his work is a desire to make sense of how different forces, 事件, and vectors intersect with one another to influence and alter legal and political understandings. Living in the context of ascendant political and constitutional conservatism, 他说, has had him mulling different strands of the book throughout his adulthood: studying economics in college while supply-side “Reaganomics” dominated political discussion, and attending law school when Reagan’s failed nomination of Robert Bork to the 最高法院 moved the originalists-vs.-living constitutionalists debates to the center of the U.S. 宪法的讨论.
“I have always been interested in the contrast between the political thought of periods when groups were out of political power, 当他们获得了政治权力. 它们有什么相似之处，又有什么变化?”
Kersch看到了一个熟悉的理论原创者/活着的
constitutionalist issue in the recent 最高法院 ruling on LGBTQ rights, 尽管导致它的案例, 包括Bostock v. 克莱顿县, were not constitutional per se but rather concerned interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forbidding discrimination based on sex.
“Should judges today understand the meaning of the word ‘sex’ by the lights of what those who passed the law in 1964 understood and imagined as its scope and applicability?他说. “Or should we understand it in light of what the word and concept of ‘sex’ means in today’s world?”
Noting that the 最高法院’s conservative justices split on the issue, Kersch said the Bostock case suggests the instability and current implausibility of what he calls “old-school, 里根时代的原旨主义.”
“Whether conservatives are moving towards an entirely new form of originalism, 或者是完全不同的东西, 还有待观察.”
肖恩·史密斯|大学传播| 2020年7月