Locke on King's Prerogative

Locke on King's PrerogativeAuthor(s): Pasquale PasquinoReviewed work(s):Source: Political Theory, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 198-208Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192029 .Accessed: 25/05/2012 13:27

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LOCKE ON KING'S PREROGATIVE

PASQUALE PASQUINO CNRS Paris and New York University

LOCKE'S SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT is considered one of the founding texts not only of the doctrine of separation of powers but of the theses of the preeminence of the legislative power and of the rule of law.' Erich Kaufmann, one of the most remarkable constitutional theorists of the first half of this century, tried to draw attention (without much success) to the great difference between Locke's constitutional theory in the Second Treatise and the rationalist doctrine of the separation of powers. The rationalist doctrine became, by way of Montesquieu and the French Revolution, the modern conception of constitutional Rechtsstaat.2 The strongest formulation of this constitutional rationalism is found most notably in Condorcet, but also in Kant. Condorcet, in "De la nature des pouvoirs politiques dans une nation libre" (1792),3 attributed to the executive the simple function "of making a

syllogism of which the law is the major premise, a more or less general case the minor premise, and the conclusion the application of the law." F. Alengry4 showed the conceptual links between Condorcet's constitutional theory and

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A first version of this essay was presented at the Politics of Necessity and the Language of Reason of State conference, King's College, Cambridge, April 1993. On that occasion, I had the opportunity to profitfrom John Dunn 's and Quentin Skinner's comments on this essay. The following remarks are part of a larger research project on which I am working with B. Manin. We reconstruct the different conceptualizations of the emergency power (or constitutional suspension of rights) in Western political and constitutional theory, from the Roman dictatorship to contemporary constitutional provisions such as Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution andArticle 16 of the current French Constitution of 1958. In a sense, I could present this project as an attempt to rewrite Carl Schmitt's book on dictatorship (Die Diktatur, 1921), which is for the most part historically mistaken and conceptually misleading because it confuses

sovereignty and dictatorship (see his concept of souverane Diktatur; some useful elements

concerning that topic are to be found in C. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Govern- ment in the Modem Democracies [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948]). This is the reason why I am not concerned with the contextualist aspects of Locke's doctrine of king's prerogative and with its relationship to the English debate on religious toleration.

POLITICAL THEORY, Vol. 26 No. 2, April 1998 198-208 ? 1998 Sage Publications, Inc.

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Pasquino / LOCKE ON KING'S PREROGATIVE 199

Cartesianism. One finds the same idea concerning the relations between the three powers or functions in paragraph 45 of Kant's "Metaphysische An- fangsgriinde der Rechtslehre" (1797):

Every state conteins three powers, i.e. the universally united will is made up of three separate persons (trias politica). These are the ruling power (or sovereignty) in the person of the legislator, the executive power in the person of the individual who governs in accordance with the law, and the judicial power (which allots to everyone what is his by law) in the person of the judge (potestas legislatoria, rectoria et iudiciaria). They can be likened to the three propositions in a practical operation of reason [Syllogism]: the major premise, which contains the law of the sovereign will, the minor premise, which contains the command to act in accordance with the law (i.e. the principle of subsumption under general will), and the conclusion, which contains the legal decision (the sentence) as to the rights and wrongs of each particular case.5

If one considers the central chapters of the Second Treatise, a very different theory about the relations between the three constitutional powers emerges. To understand the Lockean model-with the purpose of getting to his doctrine of extralegal power-it is useful to turn to the distinction that was developed in German legal thought in the nineteenth century between functions and branches (or organs).6 The three powers, or functions, of all civil government are for Locke the legislative, the executive, and the federative, meaning the power to deal with foreign affairs.7 These functions are exercised jointly or separately (e.g., the legislative function is shared by the king and Parliament) by the two branches: Parliament and the king.

At chapter XIV, section 159, one reads further:

Where the Legislative and Executive power are in distinct hands, (as they are in all moderated Monarchies, and well-framed Governments) there the good of the Society requires, that several things should be left to the discretion of him, that has the Executive Power. (italics added)

These several things, explains Locke, are the "[m]any things [... ] which the Law can by no means provide for."

Here, Locke is speaking of prerogative-indeed, the title of chapter XIV-a concept and a chapter that most interpreters pass over in silence.8 John Locke is neither the first nor the last9 among early modern English political theorists to speak of king's prerogative. The question of king's prerogative was the central issue of English constitutional debate under the Stuarts. Despite this, Locke is without doubt the only political theorist, among the major advocates of limited monarchy, to make prerogative a central element of his political theory (whatever most of his interpreters might think), and to construct from it a systematic constitutional theory of extralegal power.

200 POLITICAL THEORY / April 1998

To get a general idea of the English doctrine of the prerogative before Locke, one can read the definition of praerogativa regis (prerogative of the

king) given by John Cowell's political-legal dictionary The Interpreter:

[Prerogative] is that especiall power, preeminence, or priviledge that the King hath in any kinde, over and above other persons, and above the ordinarie course of the common lawe, in the right of his crowne.10

In the same context one could take into account Albericus Gentilis, Coke, Baron Fleming," Sir Matthew Hale,12 and Henry Parker; let alone the medieval tradition of Rotuli Parliamentorum 13 or Robert Constable's

Praerogativa Regis (1495).14 My purpose here is not to discuss the English tradition of king's prerogative but to draw attention to Locke's constitutional

theory. Perhaps one of the reasons that continental theorists have always devoted special attention to Locke's political philosophy-like Hobbes's-is because these two writers were not deeply interested in the English doctrine of the common law as such.

We can read Locke's definition of prerogative in sections 158 and 160 of the Second Treatise. Prerogative consists of a "[p]ower in the hands of the Prince to provide for the publick good, in such Cases, which depending upon unforeseen and uncertain Occurrences, certain and unalterable Laws could not safely direct." Later, Locke speaks of "[t]his Power to act according to

discretion, for the publick good, without the prescription of the Law, and sometimes even against it" (also, praeter et extra legem; italics added).

Before discussing this passage, I would like to note that one finds a very similar definition in Volume 13 of Diderot's Encyclopedie (1765) published under the heading Prerogative Royale (droit politique d'Angleterre) written

by the Chevalier de Jaucourt:

In English government one thus names a discretionary (arbitraire) power granted to the Prince to do good and not harm; or to say it in fewer words, it is the power to bring about the public good without regulations (reglements) or laws. This power is established very judiciously-here is the very interesting commentary of the Encyclopddie-for since in the government of Great Britain the legislative power is not always on hand [as is the case in France where it is exercised by the King]; that since the assemblage of this power is ordinarily too numerous and too slow to expedite? affairs which demand prompt execution; and since it is impossible to foresee everything and to provide by laws for all accidents andfor all necessities that may concern the public good: it is for these reasons that one has given a great deal of liberty to the executive power and that one has left to his discretion many things about which the laws say nothing. (italics added)15

It is clear that the author of this article has the Second Treatise in mind, the sixth edition of it having just been published in France in 1755.


legal power

domestic / legislative / - ?159, II. 19ff executive

foreign

federativet po

prudential power

?RERO GATIVE

ch. XIV, ? 160

Figure 1. Legal and prudential power.

I will make some comments that may help the reader understand king's prerogative in the context of Locke's theory of civil opposed to tyrannical government and the model of extralegal power that emerges from it.

First, the government intervenes more broadly than does law. Government intervention can be divided into two spheres of power: legal and prudential (see Figure 1). If one separates a domestic and a foreign political power (the horizontal line a), one can distinguish by a diagonal line b the legal from the prudential power. This second type of power or government is deployed predominantly in the domain of foreign affairs, given that it "is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positives Laws, [... ] so must be left to the Prudence and Wisdom16 of those who have this Power [the executive] committed to them" (sec. 147, italics added; this is why I speak of prudential government). Here, prudence is opposed to law.

For Locke, the law'7 is not all forms of legitimate rule but only promul- gated and standing (sec. 136) rules, as opposed to extemporary arbitrary Decrees. Government by law is not the only legitimate government; legiti- macy is not reducible to legality. The principle of the rule of law (Rechtsicher-


heit) cannot exclude another (exceptional) modality of government that refers back to the other principle: Salus populi suprema lex (sec. 158).

In contrast to Machiavelli's theory of dictatorship,'8 law here takes the place of ordinary, usual, or permanent magistracies (Senate, consuls, trib- unes). That which disappears is the mechanism, characteristic of Roman dictatorship, of hetero-investiture, by which one constitutional organ, the Senate in Roman republic, invests another, the dictator, with emergency power. On the contrary, it is the king of England himself who, according to Locke, decides to take recourse to his own extralegal prerogative power.

Return to Figure 1, and note that it is especially in the domain of foreign affairs that the prerogative appears: "what is to be done in reference to Foreigners, depending much upon their actions, and the variation of designs and interests must be left in great part to the Prudence [of the ruler]" (sec. 147). Especially, but not exclusively. One finds a very clear example of the exercise of prerogative in the sphere of domestic policy in section 159:

Many accidents may happen, wherein a strict and rigid observation of the Laws may do harm; (as not to pull down an innocent Man's House to stop the Fire, when the next to it is burning).

To conclude this first point, one can maintain that standing, fixed laws, which do not allow exceptions, can certainly reduce the sphere of prerogative, according to Locke, but one cannot expunge the domain of the irrational (i.e., the unpredictable) or the discretionary power capable to cope with it.

Second, on a conceptual or an epistemological level, the concrete situation/instance is not reducible to a particular case of a general norm, as in the modern, Leibnizian logic where the particular is simply and essentially subsumed under the general. This also was exemplified in the political rationalism of Condorcet and of Kant, each of whom reduces any particular instance to the application of the law. In Locke's logic, the concrete situation carries in itself the threat of transforming itself into an exceptional case (i.e., escapes the domain of law). In constitutional theory, the branch that exercises the executive function is not reducible to a machine that applies the law; it is endowed with its own will and responsibility that permit it to face the unpredictable.

From the logical and epistemological point of view, the major references remain the books by E. Cassirer, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1906), and A. Baum- ler, Das Irrationalitdtsproblem in der Asthetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhun- derts (1923).'9 From the point of view of constitutional theory, one must note that after the triumph of rationalism, the issue that I have just discussed in


the context of Locke will reappear in the doctrines of constitutional state (Verfassungsstaat). In addition to various contributions by Kaufmann, I must refer to two texts by R. Smend: his article "Die politische Gewalt im Verfassungsstaat" (1923)20 and the report on "Les actes de gouvernement" (Annuaire de l'Institut International de Droit Public 1 [1931]: 192-232).

Third, the English Parliament, as an ensemble of branches that exercises legislative power (that is, the two chambers and the king) may not be considered the seat of sovereignty.21 Locke's thesis in the Second Treatise is that the Parliament and the laws themselves, in the precise Lockean sense of the word, were established in order to limit prerogative. In section 163, he speaks of the popular decision to partially limit prerogative through positive laws, and in section 107, once again with regard to prerogative and its abuses, he presents the establishment of what I call constitution in the following terms: "ballancing the Power of Government, by placing several parts of it in different hands." In another passage, one reads that "in the Infancy of Goverments [ ... ] the Government was almost all Prerogative" (sec. 162). Parliament and laws thus limit princes' prudential power but, at least in Locke's political philosophy, the latter will not entirely disappear from the political horizon. This will become more clear if we consider the twofold conceptual structure that informs the Second Treatise.

Fourth, alongside the theory of legitimate government/polity, which is expressed in terms of the classical natural law language with concepts such as the state of nature, pact, and the separation of powers, Locke's text proposes a sort of natural history of government.22 This (natural) history originates with the family (in which paternal power is understood as the model of government in early societies; see sec. 10523) and develops into the political community that coincides with the birth of the (modern) state. We will later find this ideal history rehearsed in eighteenth-century Scottish philosophy.24

All this concerns us, since we need to establish exactly where prerogative is located in Locke's constitutional doctrine; a doctrine that he calls the theory of civil government and whose polemical target was Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha. Prerogative might be a kind of fourth power, which Locke seems to exclude, or, in any case, prerogative might position itself in relation to the tripartition of functions (legislative, executive, federative). The answer to this question demands a consideration of the historical principle to which prerogative refers.25 This principle is different from the genetic principle,26 the latter meaning a rational-deductive principle that allows us to understand the three functions of government. This requires further explanation. Legislative and executive powers represent in political society the homologue of powers that each individual possesses in the state of nature, thanks to divine crea-


tion,27 and that each individual concedes through pact to the branches of centralized government. More precisely, Locke is suggesting 1? of the power to interpret divine law (i.e., the law of nature), not only in the interest of individual self-preservation but also in the interest of the entire human community; and 2? of the power to punish all those who transgress these laws.

The federative power, in turn, derives from the punitive power of the state of nature, since the irreducible plurality of political communities (it is only in the state of nature-ante lapsum-that creatural community is not plural) leaves each community in the state of nature, where there is "no common judge on earth."28

One may reformulate these points as follows. In Locke's political theory, all that is present in the constitutional organization of civil society has its origin and basis in divine creation (the state of nature). This obviously applies above all to constitutedpowers. Civil society represents a stabilization of the state of nature; it has no autonomous finalities or goals, its only function is to stabilize and guarantee the conditions of life established by God. The most important of these conditions is the preservation of property, a word that for Locke means individual life, liberty, and estate (sec. 87).

On the basis of section 128 (see also secs. 87, 127-30, 135, and 7-8).

State of nature: " a Man has two Povers 2. to punish the Crimes one single 1. To do wathsoever he committed against that Law human thinks fit for the

community preservation of himself and others within the permission of the law of Nature;

a plurality both these he gives up, when he joyns of civil societies: in a private [. .] or particular Political Society" smaller and divided associations 1' 2' executive

legislative 2" federative

Prerogative is in turn a naturally given authority, as it invokes the authority of the father (this is an important difference from Hobbes, who derives political authority from a model of maternal power, which ensures in the state of nature the survival of offspring29) and refers to the beginnings of society, the latter being a historical reality distinct from the analytical and theological concept of the state of nature (e.g., see sec. 1703").

Thus this form of prudential authority has its origin and rationale in history, and not in the immutable order of divine creation. We now have the


principle we have been seeking to understand prerogative. This authority, which is rooted in history, must make a compromise with the power of law and with legal government in a modern society, such that the predictability and certainty of law appear as the very conditions of liberty and property; in Locke's language, the latter being synonymous with human dignity.

Finally, if the discretionary power of the modern prince is not a legal power, since it is a power extra et contra legem, it is neither an arbitrary nor irresistible power. This is, by the way, the most important aspect of Locke's critique of Filmer, and involves Locke's entirely different conception of paternal power. And, in fact, the relationship between the prince and the people is, like that which exists between the people and their legislative representatives, a relationship of trust and not one of subordination or slavery. If the king makes use of his power of prerogative against the common good, the people may take up arms, "to appeal to heaven." It is in the chapter on prerogative that Locke gives theoretical foundation to the right to resist, and to the idea of revolution (see sec. 168). This would demand further analysis. For the purposes of this essay, I will limit myself to the following remarks. Alongside the normal/ordinary political situation governed by laws and their execution, Locke's political model conceives of two types and two degrees of extraordinary situation: 1? the exercise of prerogative on the part of the head of the executive in order to safeguard salus populi, and 2? the appeal to heaven on the part of the community (which is synonymous with society) in order to establish legitimate government against the abuse of prerogative.

It is clear that in the extreme case of the appeal to heaven, the judge cannot be either positive law nor, even less, the legislative branch. For Locke, who is nonetheless among the first to theorize a modern concept of law, human beings certainly make history with laws, but the rule of law cannot put their destiny entirely in their hands. Above, with prerogative, and below, with the right to resist, the political-constitutional system, which I have attempted to sketch, remains open to the exceptional case; to be sure, it stands very far from any "absolutist/decisionist" political theory, on one hand, and from any "rationalistic" hypothesis, on the other.

NOTES

1. See C. A. Viano, John Locke: Dal razionalismo all'illuminismo (Torino: Einaudi, 1960), 220.

2. Erich Kaufmann, Auswartige Gewalt und Kolonialgewalt in der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika: Eine rechtsvergleichende Studie iiber die Grundlagen des amerikanischen und deut- schen Verfassungsrecht (Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1909), esp. 26-34, 187-91.


3. Condorcet, "De la nature des pouvoirs politiques dans une nation libre," in Oeuvres, ed. A. Condorcet O'Connor and M. F Arago (Paris: Firmin Didot Freres, 1847), t. X, p. 595.

4. F. Alengry, Condorcet (Paris: Giard et Briere, 1904), 549 ff. 5. Immanuel Kant, "Metaphysics of Morals," in Political Writings, ed. H. Reiss (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 138. 6. See R. Carre de Malberg, Contribution a la theorie generale de I'Etat, 2 vols. (Paris:

Sirey, 1920-22). 7. The Second Treatise of Government, chaps. XII-XIII, secs. 147-58. 8. M.J.C. Vile, Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers (Oxford, UK: Clarendon,

1967), scarcely mentions it; W. von Leyden's article about it is very disappointing ("La loi, la libert6 et la prerogative dans la pensee politique de John Locke," Revue philosophique de la France et de l'etranger 163 [1973]: 187-203); see also the more interesting remarks in his book Hobbes and Locke (London: Macmillan, 1982), 143-50. Jim Tully, in his otherwise excellent chapter, "Locke," in Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 616-52, never refers to it. The exceptions to note are John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), chap. 11, pp. 148-56; M. Rostock, Die Lehre von Gewaltenteilung in derpolitischen Theorie von John Locke (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1974), 146 ff., which follows Dunn but does not refer to Kaufmann; J. Roy, "La prerogative chez Locke," Cahiers de

Philosophie politique etjuridique de l'Universite de Caen 5 (1984): 149-55; E.-W. Bockenforde, Gesetz und gesetzgebende Gewalt (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1958), esp. 25-27; and F. Neumann, Die Herrschaft des Gesetzes (1936; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1980), 137-48.

9. See W. Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. I, p. 232: king's prerogative is "special preeminence [... ] over and above all other persons and out of the ordinary course of the common law, in right of his regal dignity." As Q. Skinner pointed out to my attention, the king's prerogative was abolished in England during the Glorious Revolution. In fact, the Bill of Rights passed by the Parliament in 1689 removed any form of absolute or extraordinary prerogative, the one not bound by the positive law and "which is applied to the general benefit of the people and is salus populi" (this definition is by Chief Baron Fleming in the famous Bate's Case, 1609, inA Complete Collection of State Trials, ed. T. B. Howell [London: Longman, 1916-26], vol. II, p. 389). In the Bill of Rights, we read, notably, "[t]hat the pretended power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws by regal authority, without the consent of parliament, is illegal. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal." The ordinary prerogative (king's veto), instead, has never been disputed.

10. John Cowell, The Interpreter (1607; Menston, UK: Scholar University Press, 1972). On Cowell, "civil law" professor at Cambridge, see F. Oakley, "Jacobean Political Theology: The Absolute and Ordinary Powers of King," Journal of History of Ideas 29, no. 3 (1968): 323-46.

11. "The king's power is double, ordinary and absolute, and they have several laws and ends [... ] The absolute power of the king is not that which is concerned or executed to private use, to the benefit of any particular person, but only that which is applied to the general benefit of the people and is salus populi."

12. Matthew Hale, The Prerogative of the King, ed. D.E.C. Yale (London: Selden Society, 1976).

13. "Dominus rex, pro comuni utilitate, per prerogativam suam in multis casibus est supra leges et consuetudines in regno suo usitatas" (Fleming, Ed. 1767, vol. I, p. 71).

14. See K. Loewenstein, Staatsrecht und Staatspraxis von Grossbritannien (Berlin: Springer, 1967), vol. I, pp. 499-503; C. Weston and J. R. Greenberg, Subjects and Sovereigns: The Grand


Controversy overLegal Sovereignty in Stuart England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); J. P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in England 1603-1640 (London and New York: Longman, 1986).

15. "On nomme ainsi dans le gouverement d'Angleterre un pouvoir arbitraire accorde au prince, pour faire du bien, et non du mal; ou pour le dire en moins de mots, c'est le pouvoir de procurer le bien publique sans reglements et sans lois. Ce pouvoir est etabli fort judicieusement: car puisque dans le gouverement de la Grande Bretagne le pouvoir legislatif n'est pas toujours sur pied; que meme l'assemblee de ce pouvoir est d'ordinaire trop nombreuse et trop lente a depecher les affaires qui demandent une prompte execution, et qu'il est impossible de prevenir tout et pourvoir par les lois a tous les accidents et a toutes les necessites qui peuvent concerer le bien public: c'est pour toutes ces raisons qu'on a donne une grande liberte au pouvoir executif, et qu'on a laisse a sa discretion bien de choses dont les lois ne disent rien."

16. For Locke's use of "wisdom" and "prudence," see also sections 156 and 162. For the Aristotelian concept, see P. Aubenque, La prudence chez Aristote (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986); and C. Natali, La saggezza di Aristotele (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1989).

17. See sections 142 and 144; moreover, concerning Locke's concept of law, see Btcken- forde, Gesetz, 24-25.

18. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, book I, chap. 34. 19. A reprint of this book was published in Darmstadt, Germany, by Wissenschaftliche

Buchgesellschaft in 1967. 20. Now in R. Smend, Staatsrechtliche Abhandlungen (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1968),

68-88. 21. A good introduction to this problem is to be found in J. Franklin, John Locke and the

Theory of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). 22. As was first pointed out by Hans Medick, Naturzustand und Naturgeschiche der

buiirgerlichen Gesellschaft (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1973). 23. "[T]he Government commonly began in the Father." 24. See, for a general introduction to this topic, R. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble

Savage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 25. E. Kaufmann, Auswdrtige Gewalt, 29-30: "Prerogative plays in Locke's political theory

the role of a historical principle necessary to him to the understanding of life of any political community."

26. Concerning this concept, see H. Aarsleff, "The State of Nature and the Nature of Men in Locke," in John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, ed. J. W. Yolton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 99.

27. See Btckenforde, Gesetz, 23-24; and, more extensively, Tully, "Locke." 28. On Locke's concept of state of nature, see P. Pasquino, "I limiti della politica: Lo stato

di natura e 1' 'appello al cielo' nel Secondo trattato sul governo di John Locke," Rivista di Filosofia 75, no. 3 (1984): 369-95.

29. See Leviathan, ed. R. Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 20, p. 140: "the Infant is first in the power of the Mother, so as she may either nourish, or expose it; if she nourish it, it oweth its life to the Mother; and it is therefore obliged to obey her, rather than any other; and by consequence the Dominion over it is hers. [ ... ] For it ought to obey him by whom it is preserved; because preservation of life being the end, for which one man becomes subject to another, every man is supposed to promise obedience, to him, in whose power it is to save, or destroy him."

30. See also sections 162-63, 74-75, and 105-107. In section 162, speaking of the "Infancy of Government," Locke writes: "when mistake, or flattery prevailed with weak Princes to make


use of this Power [prerogative], for private ends of their own, and not for the publik good, the People were fain by express Laws to get Prerogative determin'd."

Pasquale Pasquino worked at the College de France in Paris and at the Max-Planck- Institut in Gittingen. Currently, he is a research associate at the CNRS (CREA) Paris and is visiting professor in the Department of Politics and at the School of Law at New York University. His latest book is Sieyes et la naissance du constitutionalisme en France (Odile Jacob, 1998).

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Locke on King's Prerogative