Reclaiming the public : Hannah Arendt and the political constitution of the United Kingdom

McCorkindale, Christopher (2011) Reclaiming the public : Hannah Arendt and the political constitution of the United Kingdom. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Full text available as:
[thumbnail of 2010McCorkindalephd.pdf] PDF
Download (1MB)
Printed Thesis Information: https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b2868833

Abstract

My thesis seeks to reconcile British public law with an entity strangely alien to it, the people themselves. In other words, this is an attempt to re-discover the ‘public’ element of public law. Hannah Arendt, the primary theoretical focus of my work, challenged the people to recognize themselves as part of the problem of ‘modernity’; the problem, that is to say, of political apathy and thus the emergence of forms of government repugnant to the human condition; to consciously reinvent themselves as politically engaged citizens; and to thus reconstitute traditional structures of authority, sovereignty and law. This is an onerous task, most salient in times of revolution, and so it is to the tumultuous climate of 17th century England that I look for evidence of these ideas (albeit briefly) emerging in the English (and, laterally, British) context, before considering the reasons for their failure to establish a firm foothold on the constitutional terrain, and the lessons this might have for the public, and public lawyers, today. For Arendt law was the means by which we ‘belonged’ to a community, and the means by which we ‘promised’ to maintain a public space within that community in order to participate and confer authority to government. It is this underdeveloped aspect of her work which I will first explore, and then put to work in the context of the British constitution.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Qualification Level: Doctoral
Subjects: K Law > K Law (General)
Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
Supervisor's Name: Tomkins, Professor Adam
Date of Award: 2011
Depositing User: Mr Christopher McCorkindale
Unique ID: glathesis:2011-2625
Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
Date Deposited: 25 May 2011
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2012 13:58
URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/2625

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year