scholarly journals A Note From the Editors: The State of the Political Constitution

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 2103-2109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Goldoni ◽  
Christopher McCorkindale

The revival of the political constitution has come about in parallel with two developments, one in constitutional practice and the other in political theory. With regard to the former, the political constitution has been seen as something of a bulwark against the rise of legal (or judicial, or common law) constitutionalism. The seeming hegemony of this latter model of constitutionalism among contemporary lawyers and political scientists has produced from (so-called) political constitutionalists a reaction against the delegation of important decisions to non-political institutions and an obsessively court-centered scholarship. Perceiving this shift in focus from political to legal institutions to be the very antithesis of the traditional Commonwealth (more particularly, of the United Kingdom's parliamentary) model of constitutionalism, and, more broadly, to be an affront to democratic sensibilities, the notion of the political constitution was retrieved and defended in a seminal article in the 1979 edition of the Modern Law Review, written (though first delivered in his Chorley Lecture the previous year) by the late John Griffith. More recently, in the work of Adam Tomkins, Richard Bellamy, and Grégoire Webber and Graham Gee, a normative interpretation has been lent to Griffith's thesis so as to provide a full-fledged constitutionaltheorycapable of standing as an alternative to the liberal-legal paradigm—a turn, one might say, from the political constitution to political constitutionalism.

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Willoughby

The doctrines of H. Krabbe, professor of public law in the University of Leyden, are to be found in his Die Lehre der Rechtessouveränität, published in 1906, and his Die moderne Staatsidee, the second edition of which appeared in 1919.The political theory of Krabbe resembles that of Duguit in that it denies law-making power to the state, and recognizes law (as defined by himself) as the ruling power in human society, as sovereign, and, therefore, as above the state. However, as will presently be seen, Krabbe places the state upon a much higher plane than does Duguit. To Duguit, political rulership is nothing more than the bald fact that, in a given community certain persons, for some reason or other, possess and exercise, actual power of control over the actions of the other persons of a group. It is, as it were, an objective fact which cannot, and need not be, ethically justified. To Krabbe, upon the other hand, the state is, in essence, a community of persons unified by the general agreement of its members as to the valuation of public and private interests, and possessing organized instrumentalities for clarifying and formulating these common convictions, and, when necessary, enforcing them. To Krabbe, the state thus plays a necessary part in the declaration and enforcement of law, if not in investing it with essential validity as such.We find, however, in Krabbe, and also in his translators, as will be later pointed out, that same mistaken idea which is to be discovered in Duguit, that an inquiry into the idealistic or utilitarian validity of law, as determined by its substantive provisions and the purposes sought to be achieved by its enforcement, has a relevancy to, and that its conclusions can affect, the validity and usefulness of the purely formalistic concepts which the positive or analytical jurist employs.


Author(s):  
Anatolii Petrovich Mykolaiets

It is noted that from the standpoint of sociology, “management — a function of organized systems of various nature — (technical, biological, social), which ensures the preservation of their structure, maintaining a certain state or transfer to another state, in accordance with the objective laws of the existence of this system, which implemented by a program or deliberately set aside”. Management is carried out through the influence of one subsystem-controlling, on the other-controlled, on the processes taking place in it with the help of information signals or administrative actions. It is proved that self-government allows all members of society or a separate association to fully express their will and interests, overcome alienation, effectively combat bureaucracy, and promote public self-realization of the individual. At the same time, wide direct participation in the management of insufficiently competent participants who are not responsible for their decisions, contradicts the social division of labor, reduces the effectiveness of management, complicates the rationalization of production. This can lead to the dominance of short-term interests over promising interests. Therefore, it is always important for society to find the optimal measure of a combination of self-management and professional management. It is determined that social representation acts, on the one hand, as the most important intermediary between the state and the population, the protection of social interests in a politically heterogeneous environment. On the other hand, it ensures the operation of a mechanism for correcting the political system, which makes it possible to correct previously adopted decisions in a legitimate way, without resorting to violence. It is proved that the system of social representation influences the most important political relations, promotes social integration, that is, the inclusion of various social groups and public associations in the political system. It is proposed to use the term “self-government” in relation to several levels of people’s association: the whole community — public self-government or self-government of the people, to individual regions or communities — local, to production management — production self-government. Traditionally, self-government is seen as an alternative to public administration. Ideology and practice of selfgovernment originate from the primitive, communal-tribal democracy. It is established that, in practice, centralization has become a “natural form of government”. In its pure form, centralization does not recognize the autonomy of places and even local life. It is characteristic of authoritarian regimes, but it is also widely used by democratic regimes, where they believe that political freedoms should be fixed only at the national level. It is determined that since the state has achieved certain sizes, it is impossible to abandon the admission of the existence of local authorities. Thus, deconcentration appears as one of the forms of centralization and as a cure for the excesses of the latter. Deconcentration assumes the presence of local bodies, which depend on the government functionally and in the order of subordination of their officials. The dependency of officials means that the leadership of local authorities is appointed by the central government and may be displaced.


1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold J. Laski

“Of political principles,” says a distinguished authority, “whether they be those of order or of freedom, we must seek in religious and quasi-theological writings for the highest and most notable expressions.” No one, in truth, will deny the accuracy of this claim for those ages before the Reformation transferred the centre of political authority from church to state. What is too rarely realised is the modernism of those writings in all save form. Just as the medieval state had to fight hard for relief from ecclesiastical trammels, so does its modern exclusiveness throw the burden of a kindred struggle upon its erstwhile rival. The church, intelligibly enough, is compelled to seek the protection of its liberties lest it become no more than the religious department of an otherwise secular society. The main problem, in fact, for the political theorist is still that which lies at the root of medieval conflict. What is the definition of sovereignty? Shall the nature and personality of those groups of which the state is so formidably one be regarded as in its gift to define? Can the state tolerate alongside itself churches which avow themselves societates perfectae, claiming exemption from its jurisdiction even when, as often enough, they traverse the field over which it ploughs? Is the state but one of many, or are those many but parts of itself, the one?


2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (S1) ◽  
pp. 199-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karena Shaw

We find ourselves amidst an explosion of literature about how our worlds are being fundamentally changed (or not) through processes that have come to be clumped under the vague title of ‘globalisation’. As we wander our way through this literature, we might find ourselves – with others – feeling perplexed and anxious about the loss of a clear sense of what politics is, where it happens, what it is about, and what we need to know to understand and engage in it. This in turn leads many of us to contribute to a slightly smaller literature, such as this Special Issue, seeking to theorise how the space and character of politics might be changing, and how we might adapt our research strategies to accommodate these changes and maintain the confidence that we, and the disciplines we contribute to, still have relevant things to say about international politics. While this is not a difficult thing to claim, and it is not difficult to find others to reassure us that it is true, I want to suggest here that it is worth lingering a little longer in our anxiety than might be comfortable. I suggest this because it seems to me that there is, or at least should be, more on the table than we're yet grappling with. In particular, I argue here that any attempt to theorise the political today needs to take into account not only that the character and space of politics are changing, but that the way we study or theorise it – not only the subjects of our study but the very kind of knowledge we produce, and for whom – may need to change as well. As many others have argued, the project of progressive politics these days is not especially clear. It no longer seems safe to assume, for example, that the capture of the state or the establishment of benign forms of global governance should be our primary object. However, just as the project of progressive politics is in question, so is the role of knowledge, and knowledge production, under contemporary circumstances. I think there are possibilities embedded in explicitly engaging these questions together that are far from realisation. There are also serious dangers in trying to separate them, or assume the one while engaging the other, however ‘obvious’ the answers to one or the other may appear to be. Simultaneous with theorising the political ‘out there’ in the international must be an engagement with the politics of theorising ‘in here,’ in academic contexts. My project here is to explore how this challenge might be taken up in the contemporary study of politics, particularly in relation to emerging forms of political practice, such as those developed by activists in a variety of contexts. My argument is for an approach to theorising the political that shifts the disciplinary assumptions about for what purpose and for whom we should we produce knowledge in contemporary times, through an emphasis on the strategic knowledges produced through political practice. Such an approach would potentially provide us with understandings of contemporary political institutions and practices that are both more incisive and more enabling than can be produced through more familiarly disciplined approaches.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Ahmad El-Sharif

The Late King Hussein’s last Speech from the Throne in 1997 was given amidst public outcry over the outcomes of the parliamentary elections which resulted the triumph tribal figures with regional affiliations after the boycott of most political parties. This brought to public debate the questions of maintain the long-established balance between the several socio-political structures in the political life in Jordan. While the speech can be perceived as a reflection of King Hussein’s vision about ‘Jordanian democracy’, it can also be interpreted as an elaborate scheme to construct the conventional understanding of the exceptionality of Jordan and its socio-political institutions; including democracy. This article discusses the representation of ‘Jordanian democracy’, the state, and the socio-political structures in Jordan as reflected in the Late King’s last speech from the throne (1997). The analytical framework follows a critical metaphor analysis perspective in which all instances of metaphors used to epitomise these issues are primarily acknowledged from there sociocultural context. Herein, the article focuses on revealing the aspect of metaphorical language by which the Late King Hussein legitimizes and, hence, constructs, the prevailing ideology pf the ‘exceptionality’ of Jordan.


nauka.me ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Vladislav Gritsay

The article analyzes the political theory of F.Gizo about the nature of power and opposition, about their mutual relations with each other and with the population. The author tries to consider this theory in the context of elections to the Russian Parliament in 2016.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Anna Ceglarska ◽  

History of the rise of the Roman Republic as described by Polybius The aim of this article is to refer Polybius’s political theory, included in Book VI of The Histories, to the history of the rise of the Roman Republic. This theme must have been particularly significant for Polybius. For him, Rome was the most perfect example of a mixed government system, and the aim of describing its history was to show the development of this perfect system. The article presents the mutual relation of theory and history, starting with the period of kingship, up to the emergence of the democratic element, i.e. the moment when Rome acquired the mixed system of government. Both the political and social contexts of the changes are outlined. The analysis suggests that Polybius related his political theory to the history of the state he admired, thus providing the theory with actual foundations. Reconstructing his analysis makes it possible to see the history of Rome in a different light, and to ponder the system itself and its decline, even though the main objective of both Polybius and this article is to present its development.


2006 ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek

In first chapters of this article MacIntyre?s view of ethics is analyzed, together with his critics of liberalism as philosophical and political theory, as well as dominant ideological conception. In last chapters MacIntyre?s view of the relation between politics and ethics is considered, along with the critical review of his theoretical positions. Macintyre?s conception is regarded on the one hand as very broad, because the entire morality is identified with ethical life, while on the other hand it is regarded as too narrow since it excludes certain essential aspects of deliberation which refers to the sphere of individual rights, the relations between communities, as well as distribution of goods within the state.


2020 ◽  
pp. 105-130
Author(s):  
Charlotte Epstein

This chapter studies how liberty in the law evolved from being attached to a collective, metaphorical body—the medieval corporation—to being rooted instead in the individual body across a range of practices in seventeenth century Europe. It analyses the early modern forms of toleration that developed from the ground-up in Protestant Europe (Holland and Germany in particular), including the practices of ‘walking out’ (auslauf) to worship one’s God, and the house church (schuilkerk). These practices were key to delinking liberty from place, and thus to paving the way to attaching it instead to territory and the state. The chapter also considers the first common law of naturalisation, known as Calvin’s Case (1608), which wrote into the law the process of becoming an English subject—of subjection. This law decisively rooted the state-subject relation in the bodies of monarch and subject coextensively. Both of these bodies were deeply implicated in the process of territorialisation that begat the modern state in seventeenth-century England, and in shifting the political bond from local authorities to the sovereign. The chapter then examines the corporeal processes underwriting the centralisation of authority, and shows how the subject’s body also became—via an increasingly important habeas corpus—the centre point of the legal revolution that yielded the natural rights of the modern political subject. Edward Coke plays a central role in the chapter.


1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Simons

A sense of distance or exile is a recurrent theme of the literature in which the state of the political theory is either lamented or acclaimed. A review of these tales suggests that implicit definitions of the homeland of the sub-discipline as philosophical, practical or interpretive are inadequate, leading to mistaken diagnoses of the reasons for the ills or recovery of political philosophy. This paper argues that political theory has been exiled from its previous role or homeland of legitimation of political orders. Under contemporary conditions in the advanced liberal capitalist political order, in which a media-generated imagology of society as a communicative system fills the role of a legitimating discourse, political theory faces a legitimation crisis.


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