This dissertation examines the interaction between American social movements as they pursue their constitutional rights. The public law literature is dominated by a topdown approach to the study of constitutional politics, frequently focusing on the impact of Supreme Court decision-making. Instead, I explore constitutional politics from the bottom-up, analyzing constraints on social movement organizations as they formulate their constitutional strategies. Social movements must always be keenly aware of the actions of their peers who also seek to exploit the Constitution for their own benefit. My findings indicated that social movements recognize this competitive relationship with other social movements and treat their fellow constitutional claimants accordingly, acting to contest claims unfavorable to their cause, co-opt claims of other groups that have shown promise, and even form coalitions with their peers where an adjustment of their own claims to accommodate their coalition partners will likely net a greater return than going it alone. These negotiated constitutional claims have resulted in significant, durable and often ironic or unexpected shifts in constitutional development. / text

Scholars of human rights and constitutional law have described in great detail the abuses perpetrated by the armed forces and secret services of the United States in the context of the ‘war on terror’. There is copious literature explaining why these violations of fundamental human rights are not justifiable, and why they are not consistent with international treaties or that nation’s constitution. This thesis builds upon this research, but strikes out in a new direction. It does so by asking whether these abuses, combined with the changes to the legal order of the United States that made them possible, have produced a qualitative transformation of its constitutional structure. In particular, this thesis tracks the empowering of the executive. Increasingly, whenever it purports to act in the interests of national security, the executive claims the authority to act unilaterally in a manner that overrides even non-derogable rights. These novel constitutional reserve powers, which this thesis demonstrates were derived from President Nixon’s theory of the executive, were used to justify indefinite arbitrary detention, torture, mass surveillance without warrants, and extra-judicial execution. This thesis seeks to determine if the constitutional crisis inaugurated by this theory of executive supremacy over the laws has been terminated, or whether it has continued into the Obama Administration. If this theory is current within the executive branch, and especially if the violations of jus cogens norms has continued, it signifies a cross-party consensus about a paradigm shift in American constitutionalism. Accordingly, given the fact that the abuse of executive supremacy is what led to the development of the rule of law, this thesis will ask the question of whether the United States is being governed in accordance with its basic minimum norms. This thesis explores whether the executive is still subject to checks and balances from the legislature and the judiciary, such that it cannot violate non-derogable rights at will and with impunity. If the contrary proposition is true, it demonstrates that the crisis of the rule of law in the United States is ongoing, and this permanent state of exception demands significantly more scholarly attention. / Public, Constitutional, and International Law / LLD

Scholars of human rights and constitutional law have described in great detail the abuses perpetrated by the armed forces and secret services of the United States in the context of the ‘war on terror’. There is copious literature explaining why these violations of fundamental human rights are not justifiable, and why they are not consistent with international treaties or that nation’s constitution. This thesis builds upon this research, but strikes out in a new direction. It does so by asking whether these abuses, combined with the changes to the legal order of the United States that made them possible, have produced a qualitative transformation of its constitutional structure. In particular, this thesis tracks the empowering of the executive. Increasingly, whenever it purports to act in the interests of national security, the executive claims the authority to act unilaterally in a manner that overrides even non-derogable rights. These novel constitutional reserve powers, which this thesis demonstrates were derived from President Nixon’s theory of the executive, were used to justify indefinite arbitrary detention, torture, mass surveillance without warrants, and extra-judicial execution. This thesis seeks to determine if the constitutional crisis inaugurated by this theory of executive supremacy over the laws has been terminated, or whether it has continued into the Obama Administration. If this theory is current within the executive branch, and especially if the violations of jus cogens norms has continued, it signifies a cross-party consensus about a paradigm shift in American constitutionalism. Accordingly, given the fact that the abuse of executive supremacy is what led to the development of the rule of law, this thesis will ask the question of whether the United States is being governed in accordance with its basic minimum norms. This thesis explores whether the executive is still subject to checks and balances from the legislature and the judiciary, such that it cannot violate non-derogable rights at will and with impunity. If the contrary proposition is true, it demonstrates that the crisis of the rule of law in the United States is ongoing, and this permanent state of exception demands significantly more scholarly attention. / Public, Constitutional, and International Law / LLD