Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States of America

This bold and powerfully argued book has two themes. The `minor' theme is that the content and direction of both constitutional and administrative law are integrally related. The `major' theme is that their nature and content can only be properly understood against the background political theory which a society actually espouses, or against such a background which a particular commentator believes a society should espouse.Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and United States of America brings the fruits of writings in political science and political theory to bear on the issues of public law. A critical examination of the centralist democratic views of Dicey is followed by an extensive discussion of a variety of pluralist theories of democracy, tracing their development in the USA from the early twentieth century to their more sophisticated recent versions. A similar analysis is applied to across-section of English pluralists, and in all cases the discussion is followed by a criticism of the views expounded and an exploration of their implications for public law. Considerable space is devoted to the examination of Rawls' views and their implications for public law and to a discussion ofRepublicanism and radical participatory democracy arguments.

The book offers much to those who have a thorough knowledge of the major modern writers of legal theory ... his analyses are well-judged ... We are far from achieving Napoleon's alleged goal of making the citizen's law intelligible to every citizen. A step towards that goal would be to make the links between legal theory and legal practice clear to academics and the interested public beyond the walls of the law department. This book offers a vital first step., Craig's summaries of major authors are unusually clear and will provide useful overviews of their ideas for students ... there is much reading here and much learning; major figures have been taken apart and their weaknesses exposed., This is a work of considerable scholarship. It guides the reader surely through the work of even the most difficult writers ... The detailed references in the footnotes to the vast literature are immensely impressive. The book should be read by any student of law, philosophy, government or political science who wishes to consider fundamental questions about democracy as it has developed in Britain and in the United States ... We should be very grateful for the industry and for the anlaysis which the author has brought to this subject., valuable book, certain to be read by all who are interested in the area where law, political theory and philosophy meet ... Craig is very good at tracing unexpected intellectual connections and detecting hidden inconsistencies. He writes with great gusto and self-confidence ... His exposition is helped by a truly remarkable gift for categorisation and subdivision. The book is well produced.