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Joseph M. Bessette, Ph.D.

Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor Emeritus of Government and Ethics

Department

Government

Areas of Expertise

American Constitutionalism
American Politics
Crime and Criminal Justice
Ethics and American Democracy
Presidency

Teaching Interests

Presidency and the Constitution, Crime and public policy, Ethics and American democracy

Research Interests

Presidency and the Constitution, Capital punishment, Deliberation and democracy

Education

B.S., Boston College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago

Research and Publications

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed:  A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, with Edward Feser (Ignatius Press, 2017)

“The Imperial Executive in Constitutional Democracy: Exploring the Powers-Duties Distinction” in The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution (Lexington Books, 2017)

American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship, with John J. Pitney (Cengage/Wadsworth, 2013), Second Edition

The Constitutional Presidency, ed. Joseph M. Bessette and Jeffrey K. Tulis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)

“The Powers and Duties of the President: Recovering the Logic and Meaning of Article II” (with Gary J. Schmitt) in The Constitutional Presidency

“Confronting War: Rethinking Justice Robert Jackson’s Concurrence in Youngstown v. Sawyer” in The Limits of Constitutional Democracy, ed. Stephen Macedo and Jeffrey K. Tulis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2010)

The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy and American National Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)

“In Pursuit of Criminal Justice,” The Public Interest, No. 129 (Fall 1997)

Toward a More Perfect Union: The Writings of Herbert J. Storing, ed. Joseph M. Bessette (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1995)

The Presidency in the Constitutional Order: An Historical Examination, edited with Jeffrey Tulis (Transaction Publishers, 2010)

“Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government,” in How Democratic is the Constitution?, ed. Robert Goldwin and William Shambra (American Enterprise Institute, 1981)

Contact:
M, W: 2:00 - 3:00 and by appointment