The rule of law in the real world / Paul Gowder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gowder, Paul, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rule of law.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 275 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder defends a new conception of the rule of law as the coordinated control of power and demonstrates that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state. In a highly engaging, interdisciplinary text that moves seamlessly from theory to reality, using examples ranging from Ancient Greece through the present, Gowder sheds light on how societies have achieved the rule of law, how they have sustained it in the face of political upheaval, and how it may be measured and developed in the future. The Rule of Law in the Real World is an essential work for scholars, students, policymakers, and anyone else who believes the rule of law is critical to the proper functioning of society.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The rule of law: a basic account

I Opening technicalities

II The weak version of the rule of law in two principles

A Regularity

B Publicity

III Vertical equality

A Respect and hubris

B Terror

C Normative robustness

IV Closing technicalities

Chapter 2 The strong version of the rule of law

I Generality and the idea of a relevant distinction

A Many conceptions of generality

B Against the formal conception of generality

C Public reason as relevance criterion

II How to apply the public reason conception of generality

A Public reason: expressive

B Finding the expressive content of a law

1 Reasons and meanings

2 Proof of concept

III Generality as egalitarian principle

Chapter 3 Generality and hierarchy

I The literacy tests: a model of nongeneral law

II The rule of law and social facts

A The disjunctive character of rule of law commands

III The rule of law and the criminalization of poverty

A The rule of law critique of economic injustice

IV Is this still the rule of law?

V Private power and ordinary citizens

A Does the rule of law require ordinary citizens to obey the law?

B The Jim Crow challenge

Chapter 4 Egalitarian liberty and reciprocity in strategic context

I The rule of law as a technology of constraint

II Some arguments for the liberty thesis

A The incentives argument

B The chilling effects argument

1 The problem of complexity

C The planning argument

D Neorepublican liberty

E Democratic liberty

III Libertarian equality

Chapter 5 Isonomia: The dawn of legal equality

I How was the rule of law implemented in Athens?

A An overview of the Athenian legal system.

B The rule of law and the oligarchy

C The Athenian rule of law

1 Regularity

2 Publicity

3 Generality

II Equality and the Athenian rule of law

A A catalog of Athenian evidence

1 Forensic evidence for the Athenian equality thesis

2 Evidence from poets, philosophers, and historians

III But is the rule of law really consistent with egalitarian democracy?

A The conceptual objection: constitutionalism as the rule of law

B The practical objection: arbitrary democracy and the trial of the generals

C The problem of informality

IV Law contra oligarchy

V Appendix: A brief time line of the late-fifth-century Athenian upheavals

Chapter 6 The logic of coordination

I The strength topos and the amnesty

A The struggle between oligarchs and democrats, an overview

B The puzzle of the amnesty

C Did the Athenians learn from experience?

D The problems of commitment: disagreement and temptation

E Athens as a case of transitional justice

II Formalizing and generalizing Athens

A The model

1 Proof

2 Analysis

Chapter 7 Parliament, Crown, and the rule of law in Britain

I The British rule of law: illusory?

A Hobbesian sovereignty and the absolute-power coalition

B Constraint, coordination, custom, and the constitution

C A historical precedent: customary manorial courts

II The rule of law and equal status in seventeenth-century England

A Magna Carta as egalitarian text

B The parliamentary debates of 1628

1 Villeins and status

2 Dishonor, fear, and contempt

3 Political liberty and coordination

4 Reviewing the evidence

III Civic trust and the British rule of law in later years

Chapter 8 The logic of commitment

I The rule of law's teleology of equality?

A Commitment, full generality, and the internal point of view

II Commitment and institutions.

A Democracy and the rule of law

III Diversity, generality, and democracy

IV Simulating legal stability

Chapter 9 The role of development professionals: measurement and promotion

I Rule of law development

A Persuasive commitment-building

B Generality development

C Radical localism

1 Locally driven project design

II Studying the rule of law: new empirical directions

A The new measure: methods

1 Structure and scaling

2 Item selection and scale-fitting

B Limitations

C Behavior of the measure

III Appendix: Scores and states

A Rule of law scores

B The rule of law and other measures of political well-being

Conclusion A commitment to equality begins at home

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Feb 2016).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781316494554

1316494551

9781316496862

1316496864

9781316480182

1316480186

OCLC:

946784385