Course Catalogue

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Politics and law are deeply entangled. In contemporary politics, law-making is one of the significant sites where power is exercised. Conversely, law is seen as a crucial constraint on the naked exercise of political power. Laws are said to enact the will of people, or else to block and oppress democracy. States create, maintain, and enforce legal codes, whilst governments strain against the limits their very own laws place on them. Legislation is struck down by courts. Judges are attacked by politicians. Citizens chafe against the fetters of law whilst demanding legal action against enemies, real or perceived. In this course, we will ask why politics and law are so entangled through study of key thinkers and concepts in the Modern tradition of political and legal theory.

10 x 2-hour seminars throughout the semester

This course is open to students on both the LLB (Scots Law) and the LLB (Common Law), as well as visiting students

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Assessment 1: Essay (70%)

Students will submit an essay of 3,000 words

Assessment 2: Oral Assessment (30%)

Students will complete an oral assessment/participation component, the form of which will be clearly set out at the start of the course in the course document.

In recognition of the potential disability equality impact of the oral assessment, the course team will, in line with recommendations contained in the School's Disability Handbook, adopt inclusive assessment practices and implement reasonable adjustments to the assessment as required.

This course challenges students to develop a critical and reflective capacity to engage with the law through and from a political perspective. The claims of law to political power and authority and the demands and pressure that politics places on law are scrutinised and assessed. Students will be introduced to and engage with key thinkers and concepts at the borderline between legal and political theory in the modern tradition. With these conceptual and theoretical resources, students will learn to approach questions of law in a new and distinct way and formulate their own questions, arguments, and judgements about the rightful place of law in political society.

In this way, the course enables students to take a step-back from everyday existing legal intuitions and legal practices, adopt a new and distinct perspective from those encountered in their program thus far, before returning to pose new questions and political demands of those legal institutions and legal practices.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Evaluate the relationship between law and politics

■ Interpret key texts and concepts in legal and political theory

■ Assess conceptual, abstract, and theoretical arguments

■ Formulate political and theoretical questions about law, legal institutions, and legal practices

■ Compose sustained arguments drawing on a range of legal and political theoretic sources