Letsas, G; (2018) Law and polity: Some philosophical preliminaries. International Journal of Constitutional Law , 16 (4) pp. 1242-1250. 10.1093/icon/moy094.

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Abstract

There are many possible connections between law and polity, some of which are trivial and some which are philosophically contested. The article distinguishes different ways in which there might be a necessary connection between law and polity and offers an account of the concept of polity. In its most abstract sense, a polity can be understood as a community of people, which has a governance structure that members identify with, and which is governed by extensive demands of social justice. The article then moves on to discuss the strongest sense in which there might be a necessary normative connection between law and polity: the idea that the legitimacy of law depends on the existence of a genuine polity, one that possesses certain morally valuable characteristics. It argues that such a strong connection between law and polity faces a challenge: it is either under-inclusive, failing to capture much of contemporary international law, or stretches the notion of a polity to breaking point.

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