Peter Hennessy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780197265864
- eISBN:
- 9780191772016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265864.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
The article draws up an assessment of the resources and instruments a new prime minister inherits on his or her first day in 10 Downing Street. It examines the growth in the functions that have ...
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The article draws up an assessment of the resources and instruments a new prime minister inherits on his or her first day in 10 Downing Street. It examines the growth in the functions that have fallen to successive prime ministers, as heads of government, over the seven decades since the end of the Second World War. It explains the very special and personal nuclear weapons responsibilities that belong to a prime minister. It touches, too, on the physical and mental strains that often afflict those who carry the office of prime minister. The article examines Jack Straw’s proposal that the United Kingdom prime minister and the collective Cabinet system over which he or she presides should be placed on a statutory basis by Parliament.Less
The article draws up an assessment of the resources and instruments a new prime minister inherits on his or her first day in 10 Downing Street. It examines the growth in the functions that have fallen to successive prime ministers, as heads of government, over the seven decades since the end of the Second World War. It explains the very special and personal nuclear weapons responsibilities that belong to a prime minister. It touches, too, on the physical and mental strains that often afflict those who carry the office of prime minister. The article examines Jack Straw’s proposal that the United Kingdom prime minister and the collective Cabinet system over which he or she presides should be placed on a statutory basis by Parliament.
Zoran Oklopcic
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- July 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198799092
- eISBN:
- 9780191839573
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198799092.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
Chapter 8 proceeds from the image of a sovereign state as a flat, two-dimensional surface and re-envisions the process of collective self-government as unfolding three-dimensionally, as a dynamic ...
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Chapter 8 proceeds from the image of a sovereign state as a flat, two-dimensional surface and re-envisions the process of collective self-government as unfolding three-dimensionally, as a dynamic configuration of tendential responsiveness within the spacetime of a purposive constitutional order—a constitutional isomorph. In allowing us to move beyond constitutional self-government its aim is to dignify the plurality of constituent imaginations, deflate the claims of ethical and practical superiority of the liberal-democratic vision of popular self-government, render the idea of a forward-looking, and concretely purposeful constitutional order more sensible, and challenge the alleged inescapability of imagining the subject of constitutional self-government narratively.Less
Chapter 8 proceeds from the image of a sovereign state as a flat, two-dimensional surface and re-envisions the process of collective self-government as unfolding three-dimensionally, as a dynamic configuration of tendential responsiveness within the spacetime of a purposive constitutional order—a constitutional isomorph. In allowing us to move beyond constitutional self-government its aim is to dignify the plurality of constituent imaginations, deflate the claims of ethical and practical superiority of the liberal-democratic vision of popular self-government, render the idea of a forward-looking, and concretely purposeful constitutional order more sensible, and challenge the alleged inescapability of imagining the subject of constitutional self-government narratively.
Chris Wickham
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691181141
- eISBN:
- 9781400865826
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691181141.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Amid the disintegration of the Kingdom of Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new form of collective government—the commune—arose in the cities of northern and central Italy. This book ...
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Amid the disintegration of the Kingdom of Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new form of collective government—the commune—arose in the cities of northern and central Italy. This book takes a bold new look at how these autonomous city-states came about, and fundamentally alters our understanding of one of the most important political and cultural innovations of the medieval world. The book provides richly textured portraits of three cities—Milan, Pisa, and Rome—and sets them against a vibrant backcloth of other towns. It argues that, in all but a few cases, the élite of these cities and towns developed one of the first nonmonarchical forms of government in medieval Europe, unaware that they were creating something altogether new. The book makes clear that the Italian city commune was by no means a democracy in the modern sense, but that it was so novel that outsiders did not know what to make of it. It describes how, as the old order unraveled, the communes emerged, governed by consular elites “chosen by the people,” and subject to neither emperor nor king. They regularly fought each other, yet they grew organized and confident enough to ally together to defeat Frederick Barbarossa, the German emperor, at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. This book reveals how the development of the autonomous city-state took place, which would in the end make possible the robust civic culture of the Renaissance.Less
Amid the disintegration of the Kingdom of Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new form of collective government—the commune—arose in the cities of northern and central Italy. This book takes a bold new look at how these autonomous city-states came about, and fundamentally alters our understanding of one of the most important political and cultural innovations of the medieval world. The book provides richly textured portraits of three cities—Milan, Pisa, and Rome—and sets them against a vibrant backcloth of other towns. It argues that, in all but a few cases, the élite of these cities and towns developed one of the first nonmonarchical forms of government in medieval Europe, unaware that they were creating something altogether new. The book makes clear that the Italian city commune was by no means a democracy in the modern sense, but that it was so novel that outsiders did not know what to make of it. It describes how, as the old order unraveled, the communes emerged, governed by consular elites “chosen by the people,” and subject to neither emperor nor king. They regularly fought each other, yet they grew organized and confident enough to ally together to defeat Frederick Barbarossa, the German emperor, at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. This book reveals how the development of the autonomous city-state took place, which would in the end make possible the robust civic culture of the Renaissance.
Assaf Sharon
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190904951
- eISBN:
- 9780190904982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190904951.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Can a government of the people and by the people also be a government for the people? In this chapter, Assaf Sharon questions the deliberative democratic attempt to bring democracy and liberalism ...
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Can a government of the people and by the people also be a government for the people? In this chapter, Assaf Sharon questions the deliberative democratic attempt to bring democracy and liberalism into a unified normative framework. On the standard view, democracy and liberalism are distinct ideas that give rise to competing normative demands. Democracy is the institutional realization of sovereignty by the people. Liberalism is committed to the protection of individual liberties. Deliberative democrats claim that liberal commitments are entailed by their democratic ideal; to deny an individual’s liberties would be to exclude her from public decision-making. Sharon raises concerns by pointing out that public deliberation requires a widely shared democratic ethos, the creation and maintenance of which might require suppressing intolerant, non-egalitarian, and anti-democratic sensibilities. Given that such suppression stands to violate individual liberties, Sharon concludes that government by collective deliberation might be incompatible with a robust commitment to individual liberties.Less
Can a government of the people and by the people also be a government for the people? In this chapter, Assaf Sharon questions the deliberative democratic attempt to bring democracy and liberalism into a unified normative framework. On the standard view, democracy and liberalism are distinct ideas that give rise to competing normative demands. Democracy is the institutional realization of sovereignty by the people. Liberalism is committed to the protection of individual liberties. Deliberative democrats claim that liberal commitments are entailed by their democratic ideal; to deny an individual’s liberties would be to exclude her from public decision-making. Sharon raises concerns by pointing out that public deliberation requires a widely shared democratic ethos, the creation and maintenance of which might require suppressing intolerant, non-egalitarian, and anti-democratic sensibilities. Given that such suppression stands to violate individual liberties, Sharon concludes that government by collective deliberation might be incompatible with a robust commitment to individual liberties.
