The Shapeshifting Crown
Locating the State in Postcolonial New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK

The Crown is the bedrock of Westminster-style democracies, yet its meanings, powers and effects are opaque and little understood.

Cris Shore (Edited by), David V. Williams (Edited by)

9781108496469, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2019

288 pages, 24 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.58 kg

'This formidable team of four [editors] successfully offers us interesting insights into a topic usually studied from a legal point of view only. The essays obviously refer to statutes and case law, but they also provide interviews with key figures who share their views on the role of the Crown. Thus, the book mainly focuses on the public perception of where power really lies in the four states under scrutiny … The book shall be of interest to New Zealand readers, not only because this country is one of the four states studied, but more importantly, it provides relevant insights in light of the current debate about whether New Zealand should become a republic …' John F. Wilson, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies

The Crown stands at the heart of the New Zealand, British, Australian and Canadian constitutions as the ultimate source of legal authority and embodiment of state power. A familiar icon of the Westminster model of government, it is also an enigma. Even constitutional experts struggle to define its attributes and boundaries: who or what is the Crown and how is it embodied? Is it the Queen, the state, the government, a corporation sole or aggregate, a relic of feudal England, a metaphor, or a mask for the operation of executive power? How are its powers exercised? How have the Crowns of different Commonwealth countries developed? The Shapeshifting Crown combines legal and anthropological perspectives to provide novel insights into the Crown's changing nature and its multiple, ambiguous and contradictory meanings. It sheds new light onto the development of the state in postcolonial societies and constitutional monarchy as a cultural system.

1. Introduction: a shapeshifting enigma: the Crown in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom Cris Shore
Part I. The Nature and Development of the Crown: 2. Genealogies of the modern Crown: from St Edward to Queen Elizabeth II David V. Williams
3. The Crown as metonym for the state? The human face of Leviathan Cris Shore
4. Indigenous peoples and the Crown: the sacred duty Sally Raudon
Part II. The Crown as an Embodied Entity: 5. The rituals of Crown and state in New Zealand Jai Patel
6. Locating the Crown in Australia: the swag of Camp Gallipoli Sally Raudon
7. Localising the Crown: Royals and (re)patriation Jai Patel and Sally Raudon
Part III. The Crown and Constitutional Reform: 8. The Republican move: cutting colonial ties Jai Patel
9. Constitutional reform and the politics of public engagement Cris Shore and David V. Williams
10. Crown prerogative: reining in the powers David V. Williams
11. The Queen is dead, long live the King? Sally Raudon
12. Conclusion: the future of the Crown in an age of uncertainty: sempiternal or crumbling foundation? Cris Shore, David V. Williams and Sally Raudon.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Public international law [LBB], Legal history [LAZ], History of ideas [JFCX]