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This article presents an account of the work of the American constitutional law scholar, Paul W. Kahn, by situating it within a European tradition of political jurisprudence. After introducing certain basic features of this school of political jurisprudence, it proceeds to examine and evaluate Kahn's work relating to the political, the state, sovereignty, collective identity and constitution within the framework of that distinctive worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of the mid-Victorian jurist, AV Dicey, has had a remarkable influence on British constitutional thought, not least in establishing the orthodox framework within which modern constitutional lawyers continue to work. That legal positivist framework has, however, recently been challenged by jurists advocating what is generally called common law constitutionalism. Accepting the core of sense in Dicey's account, their objective has been to revise some of the jurisprudential underpinnings of his framework for the purpose of showing that the dominant characteristic of the British system is not sovereignty but legality. Mark Walters now builds on this revisionary work by offering a new historically informed study of Dicey's Law of the Constitution , which is designed to show that the orthodox interpretation of Dicey as a legal positivist is itself misconceived. Walters argues that, properly understood, Dicey had a more nuanced appreciation of the relationship between sovereignty and legality than is commonly appreciated. This review article examines Walters's exercise and assesses its contemporary significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 2019 Reith Lectures on the rise of law and decline of politics, Jonathan Sumption presents a thesis that, on its face, seems identical to that of J.A.G. Griffith's defence of the political constitution. Given the radical differences in their views on equality, democracy, and redistribution—with Griffith working in the tradition of democratic socialism espoused by the Webbs, Tawney and Laski, and Sumption expressing the libertarian philosophy underpinning Thatcherite policies—this is puzzling. This article sets their views in historical and political context and argues that the similarities are superficial, whereas the differences are profound. It then proceeds to show the weaknesses in Sumption's defence of his thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of constitutional democracy has been a remarkable feature of the last 30 years, but during the last decade it has suffered a dramatic decline. That decline is marked less by constitutional democracies being overthrown than by an increase in regimes that retain the formal institutional trappings while flouting the norms and values on which constitutional democracies are based. This process of constitutional degradation is the subject of two recent books that together present the most comprehensive evaluation available on the current state of constitutional democracy. In this review article, the findings and analysis presented in Graber, Levinson and Tushnet's Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? and Ginsburg and Huq's How to Save a Constitutional Democracy are examined and appraised. The article argues that solutions to the contemporary crisis cannot be found only by strengthening liberal institutions; to survive, constitutional democracy must also seek to reinvigorate its democratic aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 1978 Chorley Lecture by British jurist John Griffith about the political constitution. Topics covered include the history of political constitutionalism, Griffith's appraisal of the constitutional developments in Great Britain from the perspective of political science, and the positivist and functionalist method that drives his argument.

In 1885 A.V. Dicey identified the rule of law as a key principle of British constitutional law. Presenting it both as a product of English common law method and an expression of classical liberalism, Dicey's concept lingered on into the twentieth century but mainly as a contentious ideological doctrine or simply as a vague rhetorical slogan. During the last fifty years, however, the concept has been revived, recrafted, relocated and reified. The rule of law has become a universal trope, albeit with a range of contestable meanings. This article traces this development, showing how it has been converted into a phrase of considerable political potency not only domestically but also in the international arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glossing a passage from Benjamin Constant's Reflections on Constitutions, this article first assesses the roles performed by silences, gaps, and abeyances in constitutional texts and then examines recent initiatives that seek to fill those silences. The initiatives to fill those silences are evaluated by contrasting three conceptions of modern constitutions: the constitution as a framework for continuing political negotiation, the constitution as an order of values, and the constitution as facilitator of an evolving administrative order. The first, the framework conception, highlights the importance of political practices and in particular of the deliberative role of the legislature, the second, the value order conception, accentuates the moral dimension of constitutions and promotes the judiciary's role as guardian of constitutional values, and the third, the administrative order conception, emphasizes technical efficacy and the key role of the executive in promoting a governmental agenda. The article concludes by raising questions about those recent approaches that seek the elimination of constitutional silences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note argues that the claim that globalization leads to a fundamental shift in the very idea of law is misconceived. First, because the juristic claims advocates make are not new; secondly, because they seek inappropriately to convert empirical issues into conceptual claims; thirdly, because they promote conceptual claims by misidentifying the character of modern law; and finally because, although there is an important issue to be raised by contemporary developments, this—a politico-legal issue—is one that they avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper contends that, notwithstanding the impressive philosophical argument Lindahl presents in his book, his essential point does not extend to the plurality of normative orders that operate throughout the social world. Rather, his argument demonstrates precisely what is special about the political domain within which the modern idea of public law is situated. Lindahl's novel concept of a-legality is therefore best grasped as a reformulation of the modern concept of jus politicum, droit politique, political jurisprudence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the meaning and significance of the concept of constituent power in constitutional thought by showing how it acts as a boundary concept with respect to three types of legal thought: normativism, decisionism and relationalism. The concept can be fully appreciated, it suggests, only by adopting a relationalist method. This relationalist method permits us to deal with the paradoxical aspects of constitutional founding creatively and to grasp how constituent power, as the generative aspect of the political power relationship, works not only at founding moments but also within the dynamics of constitutional development. Relationalism realizes this ambition by exposing the tension between unity and hierarchy in constitutional foundation and the tension between the people-as-one and the people-as-the governed in the course of constitutional development. It contends, contrary to normativist claims, that constituent power remains a central concept of constitutional thought. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on intellectual influence of the concept of modernism in public law of Great Britain between the period from 1919 to 1979.Topics discussed include research writings of law scholar J.A.G. Griffith, legal positivism, and social democracy. It also discusses jurisprudential aspect of modernist public law in the English community and legal history of public law.