Bruce Ackerman’s most recent book, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Harvard 2010), reflects his dual academic identity. As a political scientist interested in historical institutionalism (including its rational choice perspective), he identifies weaknesses in the United States government’s structures; as a lawyer, he attempts to find solutions. He carefully qualifies his project at the outset, saying that he is not interested in the US's status as a world power, which may continue whether or not its republican character is undermined, and that he is not "prophesying America’s fall into a godless condition of selfishness, sensuality, sloth."Rather, he is concerned with the tendency of the United States toward an overly powerful executive, which he argues opens up the possibility for a constitutional crisis in a future, unstable political environment. The main deficiencies of the constitution consist in the populist, potentially extremist nature of the se ...