Constitutions: Writing Nations, Reading Difference (Birkbeck Law Press) - Softcover

Book 3 of 21: Birkbeck Law Press

Pryor, Judith

 
9780415431934: Constitutions: Writing Nations, Reading Difference (Birkbeck Law Press)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 041543193X ISBN 13: 9780415431934
Publisher: Birkbeck Law Press, 2007

Synopsis

Bringing a postcolonial perspective to UK constitutional debates and including a detailed and comparative engagement with the constitutions of Britain’s ex-colonies, this book is an original reflection upon the relationship between the written and the unwritten constitution.

Can a nation have an unwritten constitution? While written constitutions both found and define modern nations, Britain is commonly regarded as one of the very few exceptions to this rule. Drawing on a range of theories concerning writing, law and violence (from Robert Cover to Jacques Derrida), Constitutions makes a theoretical intervention into conventional constitutional analyses by problematizing the notion of a ‘written constitution’ on which they are based.

Situated within the frame of the former British empire, this book deconstructs the conventional opposition between the ‘margins’ and the ‘centre’, as well as between the ‘written’ and ‘unwritten’, by paying very close, detailed attention to the constitutional texts under consideration. Pryor argues that Britain’s ‘unwritten’ constitution and ‘immemorial’ common law only take on meaning in a relation of difference with the written constitutions of its former colonies. These texts, in turn, draw on this pre-literate origin in order to legitimize themselves. The ‘unwritten’ constitution of Britain can therefore be located and dislocated in postcolonial written constitutions.

Constitutions is an excellent addition to the bookshelves of all students of the philosophy of law, political theory, constitutional and administrative law and jurisprudence.

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About the Author

Judith Pryor is an historian at the Waitangi Tribunal, New Zealand

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Publisher
Birkbeck Law Press
Publication date
2007
Language
English
ISBN 10 
041543193X
ISBN 13 
9780415431934
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
256

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780415431927: Constitutions: Writing Nations, Reading Difference (Birkbeck Law Press)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0415431921 ISBN 13:  9780415431927
Publisher: Birkbeck Law Press, 2007
Hardcover