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List of contents
Introduction; Legitimacy without a sovereign people; Legal legitimacy and legalist fictions; Post communist legitimations and constitutional justice; The legal system and its environment: the conditions of the process of legitimation; The centre and periphery of legality: the strategy of dissent; Legitimation fictions and power of the contractual model.
About the author
Jiri Priban is associate professor of legal philosophy and sociology at the Faculty of Law, Charles University, Prague, and lectures at the Cardiff Law School, University of Wales. He is author of the book 'Dissidents of Law'(2001) and co- edited 'The Rule of Law in Central Europe' (1999, with James Young). He also published numerous articles in the field of sociology of law, legal philosophy, constitutionalism, human rights and post-totalitarian societies. David Nelken is Distinguished Research Professor of Law in the Department of Law at the University of Wales at Cardiff. He previously taught legal and social theory at the University of Edinburgh and at University College, London.
Summary
First published in 2003. Following the anti-communist revolutions of 1989, former communist societies started the unprecedented process of transformation. This book sets out to prove that legitimation cannot be secured by the legal system and depends on the external strategy of dissent.
Additional text
’...a fascinating, engrossing study of the problem of political legitimation in democratic political systems...this is an important and welcome book, provocative...and intriguing...Priban will be a cherished intellectual guide and companion.’ East European Constitutional Review
