The Purpose of Constitutional Political Economy

Abstract

In A Constitution of Many Minds (Sunstein 2009), Cass Sunstein, Harvard University scholar, argues that taxonomic references to constitutional literalism and purposive constitutionalism are unhelpful because they say much less about whether such philosophies espouse traditionalism, populism, or cosmopolitanism. Constitutional interpretation is, therefore, an art of juggling many ways of reasoning. In this article, I analyze these contentions using two recent books by Stephen Breyer and Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, two leading supreme court justices. They demonstrate the intriguing purpose of constitutional political economy as a challenge to orthodoxy.