My thanks to Leila Kawar for her review of my book. She very ably summarizes and engages with my core arguments, and the sophisticated and nuanced analysis characteristic of her own book was likewise reflected in her review.
In this brief response, I offer two short addendums to the arguments in my book, which I hope will be responsive to some of the queries Kawar raises. First, while Kawar is correct to note my ambition in offering some general claims regarding the nature of major political changes in American history, there are some respects in which my aims are more modest. In particular, my theory is quite explicitly limited to the American context (as she notes); I aim to describe political dynamics in only a subset of major reforms in American history; and I aim to explain a relatively limited—though highly significant—subset of actions by the Supreme Court. As such, there is much in the complexities of normal politics and transformative politics that lies outside my argument. Thus, I take no issue with Kawar’s cautionary point that instability may still characterize eras of more normal politics. I think that is indeed correct, even if my argument does imply that such uncertainties may be of a somewhat lesser magnitude relative to the contexts I examine.
A second point concerns Kawar’s query regarding delimiting rulings. Given how conservative these delimiting rulings were, she questions whether they can be explained only with reference to a judicial-institutional interest in stability. She may be hinting that perhaps some other political-cultural values may help explain the conservative nature of American legal outcomes on some matters, relative to legal developments in other nations. In one respect, I am sympathetic to Kawar’s suggestion. My current research interests are focused on matters of American political culture and ideologies, and it seems quite plausible to me that such factors must intersect with the processes of transformative recalibration in some ways: for example, in defining the range of imaginable alternatives for reformers and their opponents; in helping to delineate the scope of plausible recalibrations or reconciliations between old and new governing orders; and in helping judges process and react to the social and political conditions that confront them.
Yet once we arrive past these decision points, and once the scope of plausible judicial options was clarified to judges in periods of delimitation—which is where my attention was focused in the book—I maintain that a judicial-institutional interest in stability is the simplest and most consistent explanation for these particular delimiting outcomes chosen by Supreme Court majorities. Among the plausible alternatives in these important legal controversies, it is noteworthy that the Court’s choices always offered relatively greater clarity on demarcating the scope of recent reforms.
In sum, I believe that my argument is consistent with a view of American politics and judicial behavior where uncertainties are persistent, and where a number of important factors—such as political culture—are crucial in explaining processes and outcomes. Hopefully, my argument clarifies some of the processes and judicial actions that occur within a small but significant subset of American political developments.
