Searching for the State in British Legal Thought

Searching for the State in British Legal Thought
Author: Janet McLean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2012-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107022487

Janet McLean explores how British legal thought has imagined the state and the public sphere since 1832.

The United Kingdom Constitution

The United Kingdom Constitution
Author: N. W. Barber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198852312

This volume is an introduction to the United Kingdom's constitution that recognises its historical, political, and legal dimensions. It pays attention to the revival of the constituent territories of the UK. The constitution is shaped by constitutional principles, including state sovereignty, separation of powers, democracy, and subsidiarity.

The Administrative State

The Administrative State
Author: Armin von Bogdandy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 705
Release: 2017
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198726406

This is the first volume of The Max Planck Handbooks of European Public Law. Volume I: The Administrative State frames the administrative regimes of Europe in a comparative perspective, analysing the evolution of state and administration of major European jurisdictions, and examining issues that cut across national boundaries.

Rage for Order

Rage for Order
Author: Lauren Benton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674972805

International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires—especially in the British Empire’s sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century. “Rage for Order is a book of exceptional range and insight. Its successes are numerous. At a time when questions of law and legalism are attracting more and more attention from historians of 19th-century Britain and its empire, but still tend to be considered within very specific contexts, its sweep and ambition are particularly welcome...Rage for Order is a book that deserves to have major implications both for international legal history, and for the history of modern imperialism.” —Alex Middleton, Reviews in History “Rage for Order offers a fresh account of nineteenth-century global order that takes us beyond worn liberal and post-colonial narratives into a new and more adventurous terrain.” —Jens Bartelson, Australian Historical Studies

A.V. Dicey and the Common Law Constitutional Tradition

A.V. Dicey and the Common Law Constitutional Tradition
Author: Mark D. Walters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2020-11-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108916023

In the common law world, Albert Venn Dicey (1835–1922) is known as the high priest of orthodox constitutional theory, as an ideological and nationalistic positivist. In his analytical coldness, his celebration of sovereign power, and his incessant drive to organize and codify legal rules separate from moral values or political realities, Dicey is an uncanny figure. This book challenges this received view of Dicey. Through a re-examination of his life and his 1885 book Law of the Constitution, the high priest Dicey is defrocked and a more human Dicey steps forward to offer alternative ways of reading his canonical text, who struggled to appreciate law as a form of reasoned discourse that integrates values of legality and authority through methods of ordinary legal interpretation. The result is a unique common law constitutional discourse through which assertions of sovereign power are conditioned by moral aspirations associated with the rule of law.

State Formations

State Formations
Author: John L. Brooke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108265596

Featuring a sweeping array of essays from scholars of state formation and development, this book presents an overview of approaches to studying the history of the state. Focusing on the question of state formation, this volume takes a particular look at the beginnings, structures, and constant reforming of state power. Not only do the contributors draw upon both modernist and postmodernist theoretical perspectives, they also address the topic from a global standpoint, examining states from all areas of the world. In their diverse and thorough exploration of state building, the authors cross the theoretical, geographic, and chronological boundaries that traditionally shape this field in order to rethink the customary macro and micro approaches to the study of state building and make the case for global histories of both pre-modern and modern state formations.

The Shapeshifting Crown

The Shapeshifting Crown
Author: Cris Shore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108755321

The Crown stands at the heart of the New Zealand, British, Australian and Canadian constitutions as the ultimate source of legal authority and embodiment of state power. A familiar icon of the Westminster model of government, it is also an enigma. Even constitutional experts struggle to define its attributes and boundaries: who or what is the Crown and how is it embodied? Is it the Queen, the state, the government, a corporation sole or aggregate, a relic of feudal England, a metaphor, or a mask for the operation of executive power? How are its powers exercised? How have the Crowns of different Commonwealth countries developed? The Shapeshifting Crown combines legal and anthropological perspectives to provide novel insights into the Crown's changing nature and its multiple, ambiguous and contradictory meanings. It sheds new light onto the development of the state in postcolonial societies and constitutional monarchy as a cultural system.

Sovereignty and the Law

Sovereignty and the Law
Author: Richard Rawlings
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2013-11-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191509442

The topic of sovereignty is contentious, and one of enduring interest. In a world of ever increasing economic globalisation, the rise of supranational regulation and the interconnected age of information and communication technology, among many other developments, have challenged the once exclusively held Westphalian model of sovereignty. The distinction between the internal aspect of sovereignty as expressed in terms of ultimate authority in a constitution, and the external aspect involving the relationship between sovereign states has been blurred. This has given rise to contemporary debates that explore the theoretical and practical implications of current challenges to established doctrines. Evidently no book could encompass the entirety of the contemporary debates on sovereignty. This is a book of essays focusing on sovereignty by a team of leading writers contributing domestic, European and international perspectives. The essays have been written at a time of very great testing of the institutional frameworks at every level: domestic, European, international or global. The book illuminates the enduring strength of sovereignty as a foundational concept and the continuing widespread appeal of sovereignty as an idea.

Freedom of Religious Organizations

Freedom of Religious Organizations
Author: Jane Calderwood Norton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2016-08-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191004057

Religious freedom is now widely accepted as fundamental to any liberal democracy. It is recognised in domestic, regional, and international human rights instruments and its importance is lauded by philosophers, lawyers, judges, clergy, and even politicians. While it is easy to support religious freedom in the abstract, tensions can arise between the activities of religious organizations and the law that challenge this general commitment to religious freedom. Should religious organizations be permitted to discriminate against women or gay people in their employment practices, when admitting members, or in providing goods and services? Should the courts interfere in these organizations to protect the interests of a disaffected member or to resolve internal property disputes? Should the state allow religious tribunals to determine or advise on family matters? While much has been written about religious individuals and the law, there has been a discernible lack of literature on organizations and the law. Jane Norton fills this gap with Freedom of Religious Organizations. By exploring potential conflicts between the law and religious organizations, and examining whether the current British response to such conflicts is justified, this book will consider when English law ought to apply to religious organizations and how these conflicts should be dealt with.

Constitution-Making and Transnational Legal Order

Constitution-Making and Transnational Legal Order
Author: Gregory Shaffer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2019-04-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108473105

Constitutions are no longer exclusively national projects, but increasingly result from broader transnational processes that form a transnational legal order.