Melissa Schwartzberg

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Melissa Schwartzberg
Born1975 (age 46–47)
Nationality American
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Melissa Schwartzberg (born 1975) is an American political scientist. She is the Silver Professor of Politics at New York University, and is affiliated with its Department of Classics and School of Law. She studies democratic theory, constitutionalism, and both ancient and recent political institutions and political thought. She has written books on the conflict between democratic theory and entrenched laws, and on the tradeoff between supermajoritarian and majoritarian rulesets.

Contents

Education and early work

Schwartzberg attended Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1996 with a BA in political science and classics. [1] She then studied politics at New York University, earning a PhD in 2002. [1] In 2002, Schwartzberg became a professor at The George Washington University. [1] In 2006 she moved to Columbia University, where she remained until 2013, when she joined the faculty at New York University. [1]

Career

Schwartzberg's first book was Democracy and Legal Change, published in 2007. She studies the question of entrenched laws which are difficult or impossible to amend. [2] Schwartzberg argues that amending even fundamental laws is a central democratic activity, and that laws which cannot be changed by a democratic majority or by supramajoritarian amendment procedures are damaging to democracy. [2] In addition to motivating this view abstractly, Schwartzberg discusses specific cases in which damage was done by laws because those laws were not changeable, including the sunset provision of Article Five of the United States Constitution that protected the clause in Article 1 which guaranteed that congress could not restrict the importation of slaves. [3] Schwartzberg's view of laws as a living project aligns with the views of Jürgen Habermas. [2] [3]

In 2014, Schwarzberg published Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule. In this book she continues to consider the nature and values of majoritarian decision-making rules, examining the idea that supermajoritarian decision rules are a safeguard against the dangers of democracy. [4] She provides both a history of the use of supermajority rule and a normative discussion of its value, noting that supermajoritarian rules are in an indeterminate region between majoritarian rules and unanimous rules. [5] She studies the failure of several major recent referendums to meet a supermajoritarian threshold despite passing a majority threshold, such as the Equal Rights Amendment and the election reform proposals of the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, [6] while also situating these events in a pattern which dates to Ancient Greece. [7] Schwartzberg argues that supermajority rule, though it attempts to compensate for the problems with majority rule, introduces additional liabilities and biases. [8] Counting the Many received the 2016 David and Elaine Spitz Prize from the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought, which is awarded for the best book in liberal and/or democratic theory published each year. [9]

In 2018, Schwartzberg was named Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver, and Enid Silver Winslow Professor of Politics at New York University. [1] In 2020, Schwartzberg was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, [10] which is awarded each year to "175 scholars, artists, and writers" based on "prior achievement and exceptional promise". [11] [12]

Schwartzberg's work has been reviewed, or she has been interviewed or quoted, in media outlets such as The New Republic , [13] The Washington Post , [14] and Bustle . [15]

Selected works

Selected awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democracy</span> Form of government

Democracy is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation, or to choose governing officials to do so. Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries, but over time more and more of a democratic country's inhabitants have generally been included. Cornerstones of democracy include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Election</span> Process by which a population chooses the holder of a public office (most countries can elect

An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James M. Buchanan</span> American economist (1919–2013)

James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962, The Calculus of Consent, then developed over decades for which he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization, and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute as well as of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratization</span> Trend towards democratic norms in a society

Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system.

The tyranny of the majority is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his 1859 book On Liberty.

Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. This traditional view has come under growing criticism, and liberal democracies have increasingly included constraints on what the parliamentary majority can do, in order to protect citizens' fundamental rights.

A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but they can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises in the times action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majority rule</span> Decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority

Majority rule is a principle that means the decision-making power belongs to the group that has the most members. In politics, majority rule requires the deciding vote to have majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including many legislatures of democratic nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Dahl</span> American political scientist (1915–2014)

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The David and Elaine Spitz Prize is an award for a book in liberal and/or democratic theory.

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Positive political theory (PPT) or explanatory political theory is the study of politics using formal methods such as social choice theory, game theory, and statistical analysis. In particular, social choice theoretic methods are often used to describe and (axiomatically) analyze the performance of rules or institutions. The outcomes of the rules or institutions described are then analyzed by game theory, where the individuals/parties/nations involved in a given interaction are modeled as rational agents playing a game, guided by self-interest. Based on this assumption, the outcome of the interactions can be predicted as an equilibrium of the game.

Majoritarian democracy, as opposed to constitutional democracy, refers to democracy based upon majority rule of a society's citizens. Majoritarian democracy is the conventional form of democracy used as a political system in many countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberal democracy</span> Political ideology and form of government

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Democratic backsliding has been ongoing in the United States since the late 2010s. The V-Dem Institute's electoral democracy index score for the United States peaked in 2015 and declined sharply after 2016, for which year it was also downgraded to "flawed democracy" by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its annual Democracy Index report. Both V-Dem and Freedom House downgraded the United States in 2018.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Melissa Schwartzberg". New York University. 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Brettschneider, Corey (1 June 2008). "Review of Democracy and Legal Change". Perspectives on Politics. 6 (2): 363–364. doi:10.1017/S1537592708080705.
  3. 1 2 "Review of Democracy and Legal Change". Law and Politics Book Review. 2007. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  4. ↑ Tipler, Kathleen (February 2016). "Review of Counting the Many: The Origins And Limits Of Supermajority Rule". Contemporary Political Theory. 15 (1): e5–e7. doi: 10.1057/cpt.2015.9 .
  5. ↑ Thompson, Christopher (August 2015). "Review of Counting the Many: The Origins And Limits Of Supermajority Rule". Contemporary Political Theory. 14 (3): e35–e38. doi: 10.1057/cpt.2014.47 .
  6. ↑ Weale, Albert (April 2015). "Review of Counting the Many: The Origins And Limits Of Supermajority Rule". Political Theory. 43 (2): 279–284. doi:10.1177/0090591715573181. S2CID   147263966.
  7. ↑ Heineman, R (1 December 2014). "Review of Counting the Many: The Origins And Limits Of Supermajority Rule". Choice. 52 (4): 701.
  8. ↑ Lee, Frances E (June 2015). "Review of Counting the Many: The Origins And Limits Of Supermajority Rule". Perspectives on Politics. 13 (2): 455–457. doi:10.1017/S1537592715000286.
  9. 1 2 "David and Elaine Spitz Prize awarded to Melissa Schwartzberg, former SOF Governing Board Member". Society of Fellows in the Humanities. 2 September 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  10. 1 2 "John Simon Guggenheim Fellow Melissa Schwartzberg". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  11. ↑ "Current fellows". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  12. ↑ Mead, Nick (13 April 2020). "Three NYU Professors Awarded Guggenheim Fellowships". Washington Square News. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  13. ↑ Vermeule, Adrian (14 January 2014). "The Filibuster Does Not Protect Minority Interests". The New Republic. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  14. ↑ Matthews, Dylan (11 February 2013). "The political science of papal elections". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  15. ↑ Beckerman, Charlie (14 November 2016). "I Supported Hillary Clinton, But I Know I Am Also Responsible For Her Loss". Bustle . Retrieved 14 April 2020.
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