On Human Rights and Majority Politics: Felix Frankfurter's Democratic Theory

38 Pages - Posted: 5 Feb 2019 - Last revised: 25 May 2019

Samuel Moyn

Yale University

Date Written: January 20, 2019

Abstract

This symposium piece for the "Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law" is primarily a reading of Felix Frankfurter's dissent in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), attempting to draw some lessons from his theory of majoritarian rights for our own moment of crisis for the human rights movement. The situations then and now are only partly comparable, but Frankfurter's call for allowing democratic processes to self-correct even when elite shortcuts beckon -- including when it comes to defining and protecting rights - provides food for thought.

Note: This is a first draft; comments welcome.

MOYN, Samuel. On Human Rights and Majority Politics: Felix Frankfurter's Democratic Theory (January 20, 2019). Disponível em: <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3319515>. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2019.