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This book by Adam Tomkins sets out a radical vision of the British constitution. It argues that despite its outwardly monarchic form the constitution is profoundly informed, and indeed shaped, by values and practices of republicanism. The republican reading of the constitution presented in this book places political accountability at the core of the constitutional order. As such, Our Republican Constitution offers a powerful rejoinder to the current trend in legal scholarship that sees the common law and the courts, rather than Parliament, as the central players in holding government to account. The book further contends that while the constitution should be understood as having republican foundations, current constitutional practice is, in a number of respects, insufficiently republican in character. The book closes by outlining a programme of republican constitutional reform that is designed to secure genuinely responsible government.
This is an original and provocative reinterpretation of the central themes of the British constitution, drawing on constitutional history (especially of the seventeenth century), political theory and public law.
Adam Tomkins is the John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow.
Adam Tomkins' latest book is timely…It is powerful, inspired and uncompromising; its proposals for change are daring and invite comment…
W.T. Eijsbouts
European Constitutional Law Review
2006
The book offers a stimulating read, written with great clarity and in an unfailingly high tempo. Its author manages to engage seriously with the major currents of public law at the same time as saying something both original and distinctive.
Neil Walker
Edinburgh Law Review, Vol 11
2007
…packages some remarkably sweeping ambitions into a short, accessible and eminently readable format…an instant 'must read' for anyone interested in the United Kingdom's constitutional future…
Andrew Geddis
Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Vol XIX, No 1
Jan 06
'Tomkins deserves credit for swimming against the tide of judicialisation…his stimulation of controversy is to be welcomed. This immensely readable and thought-provoking polemic..deserves to be widely read, not least for its ground-breaking work in delineating the compelling arguments of principle that underpin our political constitution.
Danny Nicol
The Modern Law Review
2006
...[a] well-written and provocative book..The author must be commended for his effort to bring theory and history to bear on issues of current legal concern…Public law can make little progress without close attention to theoretical questions of the sort considered here..
T.R.S. Allan
Public Law
2006
...a beautifully crafted and well-written piece of work, and is likely to form the foundation of debates concerning the nature and future of the British constitution.
Matthew Flinders
Political Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1
January 2006
...a splendid contribution to the range of materials available to teachers who like to encourage their students to take a robustly-contested approach to the study of constitutional law, theory and history
Ian Loveland
Law Quarterly Review
Spring 2006
...concise and accessible to students...capable of encouraging its readers to develop a critique regarding the big questions surrounding the exercise of governmental power.
Michael Rodney
The International Journal of Legal Education
2005, Vol. 39, No. 3
