NEOCONSERVATIVE POLITICS AND THE SUPREME COURT: LAW, POWER, AND DEMOCRACY by STEPHEN M. FELDMAN

Published date01 June 2014
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2014.00668.x
Date01 June 2014
Book Reviews
NEOCONSERVATIVE POLITICS AND THE SUPREME COURT: LAW,
POWER, AND DEMOCRACY by STEPHEN M. FELDMAN
(New York: New York University Press, 2013, 235 pp., £31.00).
The neoconservative movement in the United States has received a great
deal of political, literary, and academic attention since Michael Harrington
first coined the phrase in the early 1970s.
1
Much of this attention has been
directed to the effect of neoconservative influences on the foreign policies of
the United States, both during the communist period in Eastern Europe and
its subsequent decline, and latterly in waging the war on terror, particularly
in Iraq and Afghanistan, following the attack on the United States on 11
September 2001.
2
Stephen M. Feldman's book looks rather closer to home in analysing the
effect of the appointment of neoconservative judges (or at least judges
appointed by neoconservative-dominated administrations) on the behaviour
and opinions of the United States Supreme Court, concentrating in particular
on cases involving the exercise of congressional power, equal protection, the
First Amendment, due process, foreign policy cases, and cases involving the
funding of political campaigning. His analysis culminates in an attempt to
predict the future influence of neoconservatism in the Supreme Court based
on these past decisions and its current political constitution.
One of the difficulties that besets Feldman from the outset, and indeed
confronts all those writing about neoconservatism, is that of defining exactly
what it is and how it differs from other species of conservatism that have
exerted, and still exert, influence on American politics. It has been said that:
[neoconservatism] is neither an ideology nor a movement, and was given its
name by its critics, there has never been a credo to endorse (or repudiate) or an
organisation to join (or attack). The neoconservative impulse has more
significance in the eyes of the beholder than in the minds of its adherents.
3
Feldman's own definition of neoconservatism is gradually revealed in the
course of the opening four chapters. Chapter one provides an overview of the
rise of neoconservatism culminating in a quarter of a century of political
315
1 S. Aronowitz, `Considerations on the Origins of Neoconservatism' in Confronting the
New Conservatism: The Rise of the Right in America, ed. M.J. Thompson (2007) 61.
2 M. Ryan, Neoconservatism and the New American Century (2010).
3 J.Q. Wilson, `Foreword' in The Essential Neoconservative Reader, ed. M. Gerson
(1996) vii.
ß2014 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2014 Cardiff University Law School

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