That is, in essence, the thesis of a new book I’ve written. Intended to be short and accessible, the University Press of Kansas is publishing it this fall in a series edited by Sandy and Jeff Tulis. I’ve just posted Chapter 1 of Broken Trust: Dysfunctional Government and Constitutional Reform, to SSRN. Chapter 1 serves both as the introduction and begins the discussion by setting out my themes of the relationship of trust in government to the constitutional order, understanding dysfunctional government in terms of studying the aftermath of “policy disasters,” and whether and how we should reform the Constitution.
Chapter 1 begins by establishing a framework, inspired by the work Madison did in preparation for the Philadelphia Convention, for assessing claims that dysfunctional government justifies changing the Constitution. It argues that although the idea that our government is dysfunctional is quite plausible, it is much harder than most assume to build a case that this dysfunction justifies fundamental constitutional reform. Despite this, the book assumes the burden of arguing that such fundamental reform is justified. However, I have an original take on how such an argument can be made and so I go about this task differently from most of the existing literature. In particular, although I have no quarrel with the evidence of political polarization, at least among elites, I steer clear of arguments about dysfunction based on polarization. I believe that the problem of trust in government is more fundamental and relevant to the challenge of justifying constitutional reform.