Law, Liberty and State
Oakeshott, Hayek and Schmitt on the Rule of Law

This book brings the three most important twentieth-century theorists of the rule of law into debate with each other.

David Dyzenhaus (Edited by), Thomas Poole (Edited by)

9781107472273, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 February 2017

350 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.51 kg

Oakeshott, Hayek and Schmitt are associated with a conservative reaction to the 'progressive' forces of the twentieth century. Each was an acute analyst of the juristic form of the modern state and the relationship of that form to the idea of liberty under a system of public, general law. Hayek had the highest regard for Schmitt's understanding of the rule of law state despite Schmitt's hostility to it, and he owed the distinction he drew in his own work between a purpose-governed form of state and a law-governed form to Oakeshott. However, the three have until now rarely been considered together, something which will be ever more apparent as political theorists, lawyers and theorists of international relations turn to the foundational texts of twentieth-century thought at a time when debate about liberal democratic theory might appear to have run out of steam.

1. Introduction David Dyzenhaus and Thomas Poole
2. The mystery of the state: state-concept, state-theory and state-making in Schmitt and Oakeshott Nehal Bhuta
3. Law as concrete order: Schmitt and the abnormality of collective freedom Hans Lindahl
4. Nomos Martin Loughlin
5. Carl Schmitt's defence of sovereignty Lars Vinx
6. Schmitt, Oakeshott and the Hobbesian legacy in the crisis of our times David Boucher
7. The mystery of lawlessness: war, law, and the modern state Thomas Poole
8. Reconfiguring reason of state in response to political crisis Duncan Kelly
9. Gambling and the rule of law: stochastic rationality in Oakeshott's philosophy Erika A. Kiss
10. Dreaming the rule of law David Dyzenhaus
11. What, if anything, is wrong with Hayek's model constitution? Jan-Werner Müller
12. Hayek's theory of the state Chandran Kukathas
13. Local and global knowledge in the administrative state Adrian Vermeule.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Law [L], Political science & theory [JPA]