The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

Liberals have acclaimed, and conservatives decried, reliance on courts as tools for changes. But while debate rages over whether the courts should be playing such a legislative role, Gerald N. Rosenberg poses a far more fundamental question— can courts produce political and social reform?

Rosenberg presents, with remarkable skill, an overwhelming case that efforts to use the courts to generate significant reforms in civil rights, abortion, and women’s rights were largely failures.

“The real strength of The Hollow Hope . . . is its resuscitation of American Politics—the old-fashioned representative kind—as a valid instrument of social change. Indeed, the flip side of Mr. Rosenberg’s argument that courts don’t do all that much is the refreshing view that politics in the best sense of the word—as deliberation and choice over economic and social changes, as well as over moral issues—is still the core of what makes America the great nation it is. . . . A book worth reading.”—Gary L. McDowell, The Washington Times