Rosalind Dixon is a leading global expert on comparative constitutional law, design, and democracy. She is Professor of Law and Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW Sydney, and a former assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School, visiting professor at Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and the National University of Singapore. She is also immediate past co-president of the International Society of Public Law, and a member of the Australian Academy of Law and Academy of Arts and Social Sciences.

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Constitutions and Constructional Choice


• 3: Defining Democracy and Democratic Dysfunction


• 4: The Scope and Intensity of Responsive Judicial Review


• 5: Democratic Dysfunction and the Effectiveness of Responsive Review


• 6: Risks to Democracy: Reverse Inertia, Democratic Backlash, and Debilitation


• 7: Toward Strong-Weak - Weak-Strong Judicial Review and Remedies


• 8: A Responsive Judicial Voice: Building a Court's Legitimacy


• 9: Conclusion: Towards a New Comparative Political Process Theory

Democratic dysfunction can arise in both 'at risk' and well-functioning constitutional systems. It can threaten a system's responsiveness to both minority rights claims and majoritarian constitutional understandings. Responsive Judicial Review aims to counter this dysfunction.