Bringing together established academics and new researchers, the chapters in this collection interrogate the operation of 'the public' in a range of different legal, illegal and alegal spaces. The key question which frames the contributions is whether and in what manner 'the public' operates as an interface between law and society, allowing the interests and opinions of the population at large to be represented and reflected in legal discourse, such that collectively generated imperatives may be imposed upon political and economic actors. Multi-disciplinary in its approach, the volume...

The essays selected for this volume demonstrate the importance of law - conceptually, normatively and practically - to a proper understanding of Hannah Arendta s work. Though Arendt herself was not a lawyer, and lacked any legal training, it is remarkable that in each of her guises law plays an often subtle, at times idiosyncratic, but unavoidably vital role. For example, as a journalist, confronting the evil of Adolf Eichmann; or as an essayist, engaged with emerging democracies in the East or their unravelling in the West; or as a political thinker concerned to celebrate and secure the...