Some measure of equality is necessary for deliberative democracy to work well, yet empirical scholarship consistently points to the deleterious effect that hierarchy and inequalities of epistemological authority have on deliberation. This article tests whether real-world deliberative forums can overcome these challenges. Contrary to skeptics, it concludes that the act of deliberation itself and the presence of trained moderators ameliorate inequalities of epistemological authority, thus rendering deliberative democracy possible, even within hierarchical organizations.

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This symposiumʹs organising topic -accessing constitutional justice -is ripe with normative and empirical questions. On the normative side, the topic raises the perennial questions: What is justice? How might a constitution organise a political system to promote it? What roles do the political branches, especially courts, play in promoting constitutional justice? What procedures should be in place for individuals to access constitutional justice? Many of the symposiumʹs papers rightly focus on the access gates (elements such as standing, costs, amicus curiae) that enable or prevent individuals from litigating, or the process gates (such as the issuance of advisory opinions) that shape the form of justice that may or may not come from courts. This paper takes the liberty of not comparing Australiaʹs access and process gates to those in other countries. Rather, it focuses on the implements available to litigants and judges to promote constitutional justice once access to the judicial system is secured. In this light, accessing constitutional justice concerns more than simply getting into the system. It also concerns what sort of justice litigants may contest and what sort of justice the courts can provide. This varies cross-nationally, based, in part, on how judicial power is allocated and how legal and political rights are protected in the constitutional system. The simple point is that the justice one can access or secure depends to some extent on what is or is not included in the constitutional system.The Rudd governmentʹs announcement in late April 2010 that it would not move legislation creating a national charter of rights suspends any formal action in Canberra for the next several years, although the public debate and advocacy certainly will continue. The National Human Rights Consultation, charged in 2008 by Attorney-General Robert McClelland to investigate the adequacy of rights protections and make policy recommendations on how to strengthen rights protections, submitted its report in September 2009 after completing a thorough, nation-wide consultation that elicited some 35,000 written submissions and verbal testimony from over 5,000 individuals. The report recommended, inter alia, enactment of a federal statutory charter of rights that mimics elements of the Australian Capital Territoryʹs Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) and Victoriaʹs Charter of

Jupille argues that political scientists have given inadequate attention to the politics within the European Union (EU) over rules. Many scholars study the politics surrounding its treaty making-the historic grand bargaining-and the everyday politics that occur within its rules. But the politics that surround the construction of midlevel rules is undertheorized. Jupille's book convincingly fills this gap. As I am writing this review, the U.S. Senate is in an intensely partisan debate over federal judicial nominations. Senate Democrats used the filibuster procedure to thwart several of President Bush's nominees in 2004. Republicans appear to be moving ever closer to "the nuclear option," whereby the Senate rules would be rewritten to prohibit judicial filibusters. Democrats see such a step as an unseemly exercise of raw political power. Republicans conceive it as a principled and necessary move that comes with being in the majority. Jupille would see this as politics over rules, whereby the rules themselves become the point of contestation.Drawing on institutional theories used to explain the U.S. Congress, Jupille offers a positive theory of procedural politics in the EU using game-theoretic, strategic, and rational-actor approaches and then tests his theory with aggregate data and case studies from two policy areas. This theory for procedural politics addresses the following questions: When and why are institutional actors likely to engage in procedural politics? What effect do procedural politics have on policy outcomes? Jupille argues that political actors must find both opportunities and incentives for engaging in procedural politics, and if these conditions are met, they will do so to maximize their institution's influence. At first blush, a rational-actor, influence-maximization thesis may seem underwhelming, if not obvious, but there is much more to Jupille's book.His theory for procedural politics, discussed in chapter 2, distills into five hypotheses. First, procedural politics occur when an issue raises jurisdictional ambiguity; that is, an issue could fall under more than one jurisdiction. Second, as alternative rules appear to confer more influence on political actors, procedural politics become more common. His next two hypotheses address the processes and behavior of procedural politics. Hypothesis 3 says that actors will define policy issues strategically to "fit" rule procedures that confer greater influence. This may include trying to fuse disparate legislative proposals, to fissure multidimensional proposals, or to reframe a pro-1000