Constitutional doctrine develops as replications and mutations of one fundamental structure

Evidence

First, regarding ConstitutionalAnalysis, Powell establishes a crucial point about the DNA, as it were, of constitutional doctrine. I intend to argue that there is a fundamental structure to all doctrinal analysis; that every constitutional doctrine can be usefully understood when organized into this structure; and that the development of doctrine, in every area, is best understood as a set of replications, and mutations, of doctrine organized into this fundamental way. The basic parts of this structure have been perpetuated in an environment in which constitutional law has a unique existence beyond the party and policy preferences of the deciders called upon to construe it; indeed, I daresay this structure could not have persisted-through civil war, economic reconstruction, and international conflict-without this status. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 215

Categorization

• DEFINE: Bobbitt’s core theoretical claim: all constitutional doctrine shares a fundamental organizing structure that replicates and mutates across generations.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘constitutional order / epochal’ framework of Bobbitt’s own earlier work and the meme/replication model of cultural evolution (Dawkins), plus Powell’s Constitutional Analysis. — connects to: Inner psychological mutation, not independence, is what generates national sovereignty; US constitutional argument forms derive from common-law modes overlaid on the state. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 225; A constitutional description’s static feel reflects the observer’s participation in an evolving process. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 482 (+4 more)

Related

• US constitutional argument forms derive from common-law modes overlaid on the state. (similarity 0.81)
• Constitutional law and jurisprudence need have only contingent historical connections. (similarity 0.81)
• and their presence in our political discourse does not require us to deny them legitimacy or to corrupt our forms of decision according to law. American constitutional law can be a profoundly… (similarity 0.80)
• Philip Chase Bobbitt — Reflections Inspired by My Critics (similarity 0.79)
• Postmodern constitutional thought marks a shift from truth to meaning. (similarity 0.79)
• Critics of Bobbitt’s constitutional theory fall into three identifiable camps (similarity 0.79)
• A constitutional description’s static feel reflects the observer’s participation in an evolving process. (similarity 0.79)
• When Winter discloses that ‘in effect, then, Bobbitt concedes that law faces the very predicament that Unger identifies’—that legal decisions are sometimes indeterminate—he discloses nothing… (similarity 0.78)
• Forms of constitutional argument are validated by their presence in practice, not by approval (similarity 0.78)
• Balkin and Levinson conclude that I must either accept whatever is practiced or abandon my pose as simply a descriptive observer. These descriptions depend on several assumptions that I do not… (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• A constitutional description’s static feel reflects the observer’s participation in an evolving process. #exemplifies (0.60) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 482
• US constitutional argument forms derive from common-law modes overlaid on the state. #exemplifies (0.50) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 225
• As he does with Wittgenstein, Winter intends to indict me for the particularist fallacy and for practice fetishism, though in my case it is not because I am a behaviorist, but because I am a… #exemplifies (0.50)
• When I began writing Constitutional Interpretation, constitutional criticism (and jurisprudence) reflected the universalist ideals of empiricism and scarcely questioned the premises of autonomous… #corroborates (0.40)
• Historical practice by the First Congress reveals constitutional meaning beyond pattern alone #exemplifies (0.40) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1070