Cornell University Law School Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository Cornell Law Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 4-2015 Constitutionalism and the Foundations of the Security State Aziz Rana Cornell Law School,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Legal History, Theory and Process Commons, and the National Security Commons Recommended Citation Aziz Rana, "Constitutionalism and the Foundations of the Security State," 103 California Law Review (2015) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Constitutionalism and the Foundations of the Security State Aziz Rana Scholars often argue that the culture of American constitutionalism provides an important constraint on aggressive national security practices. This Article challenges the conventional account by highlighting instead how modern constitutional reverence emerged in tandem with the national security state, critically functioning to reinforce and legitimize government power rather than primarily to place limits on it. This unacknowledged security origin of today’s constitutional climate speaks to a profound ambiguity in the type of public culture ultimately promoted by the Constitution. Scholars are clearly right to note that constitutional loyalty has created political space for arguments more respectful of civil rights and civil liberties, making the very worst excesses of the past less likely. At the same time, however, public discussion about protecting the Constitution—and a distinctively American way of life—has also served as a key justification for strengthening the government’s security infrastructure over the long run.