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The Sleeping Sovereign

The Invention of Modern Democracy

Richard Tuck author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:15th Feb '16

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The Sleeping Sovereign cover

An examination of how the modern idea of constitutional referendums developed and how direct democracy became possible in modern states.

An exploration of the important distinction in political theory between a 'sovereign' and a 'government' state, from its first appearance in Bodin's writings in the late sixteenth century, through its seventeenth-century treatment by Grotius, Hobbes and Pufendorf, to the eighteenth-century response, and the presentation of 'government' in the American Constitution.Richard Tuck traces the history of the distinction between sovereignty and government and its relevance to the development of democratic thought. Tuck shows that this was a central issue in the political debates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and provides a new interpretation of the political thought of Bodin, Hobbes and Rousseau. Integrating legal theory and the history of political thought, he also provides one of the first modern histories of the constitutional referendum, and shows the importance of the United States in the history of the referendum. The book derives from the John Robert Seeley Lectures delivered by Richard Tuck at the University of Cambridge in 2012, and will appeal to students and scholars of the history of ideas, political theory and political philosophy.

'Richard Tuck is justly known for innovative, deeply contextual scholarship that manages to revise our ordinary ways of looking at the history of political thought. His new book does not disappoint. Indeed, I warmly commend it. … offers the reader a commanding metaphor for rethinking how modern democracy was 'invented'.' Michael Mosher, The Review of Politics

ISBN: 9781107570580

Dimensions: 217mm x 140mm x 17mm

Weight: 370g

310 pages