The British constitution is typically seen as not only a unique, but a uniquely conservative, set of political arrangements among the constitutions of the world. This characterisation stems from the constitution’s pre-modern origins and continuity over time, and its unwritten, traditional, and organic nature. This historical experience has been far from free of crises, fundamental changes (and reversals), or violent conflict. But the distinguishing feature of British constitutional history is the absence of a modern moment of revolutionary rupture, marking the shift of the state’s foundations from traditional rule to constitutional modernity and documentary constitutionalism.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

During the 1920s, Harold Laski worked on producing a comprehensive account of a political philosophy appropriate for the new age of social democracy that was just emerging. During the 1930s, however, his optimistic political outlook waned and with this he modified his position and, in its place, presented a materialist account of British constitutional arrangements. This paper explains this later development of his thought. It examines the unfolding of his argument through his studies of the crisis of parliamentary democracy, the nature of the modern state and his materialist analysis of the British constitution and offers critical reflections of the significance of this phase of his work.

This chapter explores the role that monarchist beliefs played in war recruitment in Britain and in the British Empire. It looks at the ways that monarchist beliefs appeared in wartime propaganda, songs and recruitment campaigns as well as the monarchy’s importance to British legal and religious cultures. It examines how the first two years of the war saw the monarchy’s position consolidated and sacralised in Britain, arguing that the monarchy was central to British identity and associated with ideals of ‘honour’.

Over the last 150 years, the standing that the British constitution once held in the minds of the people has suffered a remarkable decline. Uncertainty about its supposedly fixed characteristics has been such that it is now extremely difficult to present an account of its nature and meaning in an impartial manner. Against this background, this chapter presents a simplified history in which, over six successive phases and in response to prevailing political concerns of the period, the meaning of ‘constitution’ changes in subtle ways. Reflections on this development helps us set contemporary constitutional controversies in an appropriate context. It also enables to see more clearly the significance of a basic question which modern constitutional development had hitherto managed to suppress: the constitution of what?

Chapter 5 examines Burke’s attempt to reform the constitutional structure of the British government, as outlined in his Speech on Economical Reform and related speeches on the same subject. The animating principles behind Speech on Economical Reform reveal broader patterns of Burke’s economic thought regarding the virtues of contracts, free commerce, and the private stewardship of land. I also explain that Burke’s qualified defense of public administration illustrated his belief that the state was necessary in civil society to perpetuate elements of permanence beneath the vagaries of everyday life. He did not seek to strip government of all offices and pensions in order to reduce its footprint to the lowest possible level, thereby distinguishing himself from many classical liberals and modern-day libertarians who endorse a minimalist state. Instead, Burke contended that the most effective form of government was one that was firm and selective in the fulfillment of specific duties, and one that rewarded industrious public employees for their service to the state. I underscore further that Burke’s economical program exemplifies his philosophy of reform: in order to preserve institutions, such as the British Constitution, they must be modified to adapt to shifting circumstances.