Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T13:12:36.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Googling the equivalence of private arbitrary power and state arbitrary power: why the Rule of Law does not relate to private relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2021

Paul Burgess*
Affiliation:
Monash University, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: paul.burgess@monash.edu

Extract

The contributions to this Special Issue, and the books to which they relate, are premised on the idea that the Rule of Law relates to private relationships. I challenge that idea. By exploring solely theoretical ideas, I argue that the Rule of Law – as it is usually defined – does not relate to private relationships and, in consequence, the nexus necessary to invoke a Rule of Law-solution in the circumstances outlined in the books is absent.

Type
Reviews Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, (1981) The Politics, Sinclair, T and Saunders, TJ (trans.). London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (2004) Rhetoric, Roberts W, Rhys (trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Austin, LM and Klimchuk, D (eds) (2014) Private Law and the Rule of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, WW (1961) The international rule of law. Michigan Law Review 59, 553574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, P (2017a) Neglecting the history of the rule of law: (unintended) conceptual eugenics. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 9, 195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, P (2017b) The rule of law: beyond contestedness. Jurisprudence 8, pp. 480500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, P (2019) Deriving the international rule of law: an unnecessary, impractical and unhelpful exercise. Transnational Legal Theory 10, 6596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, P (2020) The rule of lore in the rule of law: putting the problem of the rule of law in context. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 12, 333361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collingwood, RG (1939) An Autobiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Craig, P (1997) Formal and substantive conceptions of the rule of raw an analytical framework. Public Law, 467487.Google Scholar
Dicey, AV (1885/1979) Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 10th edn. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fuller, LL (1964) The Morality of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hayek, FA (1944/2007) The Road to Serfdom, Caldwell, B (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jones, S and Aiken, M (1995) British companies legislation and social and political evolution during the nineteenth century. The British Accounting Review 27, 6182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsen, H (1941) The law as a specific social technique. University of Chicago Law Review 9, 7597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J (1689/1988) Two Treatises of Government, Laslett, P (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Selznick, P (with Nonet, P and Vollmer, H) (1969) Law, Society and Industrial Justice. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Selznick, P (1999) Legal cultures and the rule of law. In Krygier, M and Czarnota, A (eds), The Rule of Law after Communism: Problems and Prospects in East-Central Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 2138.Google Scholar
Sempill, JA (2017) The lions and the greatest part: the rule of law and the constitution of employer power. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 9, 283314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sempill, JA (2018) What rendered ancient tyrants detestable: the rule of law and the constitution of corporate power. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 10, 219253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taekema, S (2021) Commitment to the rule of law: from a political to an organizational ideal. In Vilaca, G and Varaki, M (eds), Ethical Leadership in International Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, J (2011) The rule of law and the importance of procedure. In Fleming, JE (ed.), Getting to the Rule of Law. New York: New York University Press, pp. 331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J (2016) The rule of law. In Zalta, EN (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/rule-of-law/ (accessed 1 February 2021).Google Scholar
Weber, M (1921/2013) Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar