The chapter presents a novel perspective on exit, expanding it beyond physical migration from one country to another. It introduces the idea of death as a permanent form of exit, emphasizing its substantial influence on political dynamics. The text posits that voter exit is a critical factor in the survival of regimes, complementing various strategies employed by ruling parties to maintain their grip on power. This chapter also discusses the literature on dominant parties and different regime types. This chapter lays the groundwork for the rest of the book, exploring these themes in greater depth and detail. Exit, through migration and mortality, is a pivotal element for understanding the complexities of political stability and regime longevity.

Inter-Asian Law is starkly absent from constitutional accounts of reproductive rights in Asia. Instead, Asian jurisdictions tend to draw from the Global North, with the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade occupying norm status. To explicate the potential of Inter-Asian Law in transforming reproductive rights, an act of imagination is required, suspending Roe as the central comparative frame and introducing alternate, hypothetical referents from Asia. This chapter conducts this task at two stages. First, it develops imagination as a method of comparative constitutional law. Second, applying the imaginative method, it hypothesizes what reproductive rights might look like if Nepal served as a referent for India and India as a referent for Bangladesh. In documenting explicit shifts in the constitutional construction of these rights, the chapter cements the place of Inter-Asian Law.

While it is important to trace Emerson’s main positions, one misses the living nature of his philosophy unless one also takes account of the motions, moods, and patterns within his essays, and the ways he dramatizes instability, spontaneity, and inconsistency. This emphasis is found in Goodman’s discussions of “History” in Chapter 1, “Friendship” in Chapter 3, “Nominalist and Realist” in Chapter 4, “Manners” in Chapter 6, “Experience” in Chapter 7, “Nature” in Chapter 9, and “Illusions” in Chapter 10. Chapter 2 distinguishes the sheer variety of skepticisms in Emerson’s thought, about the world and other minds, but also about mystical experiences that refuse “to be named” or are “ineffable.” It also attends to the differences between the “modern” tradition of skepticism as doubt, and skepticism as a form of life, with Emerson’s essay on Montaigne a key source for his idea of a “wise skepticism.”

The Declaration of Independence, usually regarded principally or even exclusively as a manifesto about certain “inalienable rights,” is better understood, especially historically, as a complex argument about popular sovereignty. Who exactly were “the people” who were entitled, as in the America of 1776, to secede from the British Empire and then claim their own rights of “self-determination”? The Declaration begins with the assertion that Americans were “one people.” But that was demonstrably false, even in 1776, and has become even more so since then. After all, James Madison, in Federalist 10, emphasizes the plurality of interests, including, religion and property, that generate “faction” and the possibility of tyranny of governing elites. Does the Declaration, even if complemented by the Constitution, supply enough of an “American creed” to supply the basis for genuine unity and political amity or does it instead plant the seeds for further division and even secession in the name of self-determination and government by consent of the governed?

The twenty-six grievances in the Declaration of Independence targeted two distinct categories of British policies: reforms and punishments. Parliamentary reforms like taxing the colonies to help pay for the 10,000 troops left in America at the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 (mostly as a human wall protecting colonists from Native Americans – and vice versa) angered free colonists, but not sufficiently to make them want out of the British Empire. Free Americans did, however, protest Parliament’s reforms, for example, by tarring and feathering Customs officials who cracked down on molasses smugglers, burning stamped paper, and throwing 340 chests of tea – taxed by Parliament and carried to American ports by the East India Company – into Boston Harbor. To punish the colonists for these protests, Parliament revoked Massachusetts’ charter, sent troops to reoccupy Boston, and more. Ultimately royal officials in the colonies even forged informal alliances with black Americans previously enslaved by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founders. It was these British punishments, not Parliament’s original reforms, that pushed free colonists over the edge into independence.

The prologue of Invisible Fatherland examines how Weimar Germany has become a metaphor for democratic failure and is often remembered for its catastrophic collapse and the rise of Adolf Hitler. This narrative overshadows the nuanced and sophisticated efforts by Weimar contemporaries to build an open and forward-looking democracy amid social, political, and economic turmoil. Written from Charlottesville, a city grappling with its own history of democratic challenges, the prologue reflects on the vibrant practices of Weimar democracy by looking at the Republic from its hopeful beginning rather than its tragic end. At the same time, it also acknowledges the challenges Weimar faced, as authoritarian and illiberal ideologies exploited its legal and cultural vulnerabilities. Setting the stage for the book’s broader argument, the prologue asks readers to reconsider the meaning of democratic fragility — not as a weakness, but as a strength that fosters flexibility and adaptation. This reflection is especially urgent as democracies worldwide confront rising authoritarianism and polarization.

This chapter explores the emergence of Inter-Asian Law (IAL) through the lens of multilayered investment agreements. It argues that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-centered regime has driven the normative evolution of IAL, which has diverged from Western approaches rooted in the Washington Consensus. The study examines how Asian countries are developing their own legal models, reducing dependence on American and European rules, and strengthening Asia’s influence in shaping international law. Focusing on investment law, the chapter highlights the pragmatic incrementalism of ASEAN and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in legal approaches. It analyzes the development of investment issues across three waves of global regionalism, as well as the evolving investment frameworks of the Asia-Pacific. Hence, the research demonstrates how IAL reflects Asian approaches to global governance and offers alternatives to conventional Western-dominated models for developing countries.

This chapter examines how various civil rights movements have interwoven the Declaration into their advocacy for causes to combat social and legal discrimination, including chauvinism, labor exploitation, and election plutocracy. A variety of groups, including first-wave feminists and labor advocates, effectively relied on it to promote various constitutional causes. Among suffragettes, its statement of human equality stood out, while workers’ movements favored the document’s condemnation of autocracy and oppression. As with other groups who likewise relied on the Declaration’s mandates, it represented a national commitment toward achieving a liberal equality for the common good. The Declaration of Independence remains relevant today to matters as broad in constitutional scope as federalism, campaign financing, AI advertisement, and separation of powers. Its sweeping statement of unalienable human rights and equality continues to embody core American commitments to representative democracy. That manifesto of equality and freedom has for two centuries influenced politicians, civil rights organizations, and ordinary people in the United States and abroad.