The book is written by Martin Krygier AM and co-hosted by UNSW Law & Justice and the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law
Join us for a book forum on Tempering Power. Beyond the Rule of Law
This hybrid event will take place:
- In person: Adrian Cameron Room, Level 2, UNSW Faculty of Law & Justice
- Online: Teams (link will be sent out closer to the event date)
Drinks and nibbles will be served, and copies of the book will be available for purchase for in person attendees.
What is the rule of law for? What does that take? Why does it matter? There is little clarity and less agreement about any of these questions. That is partly because they are hard, but it is also because we generally do not think especially well about them. Yet they are rarely more important than today, and there are better ways to think. In this book, Martin Krygier combines an account of conventional assumptions, a fundamental critique of them, and an alternative way of thinking about the purpose, the value, and the significance of the rule of law in light of the goal it should serve: tempering power. In this time of widespread intemperate abuse of power throughout the world, these concerns are not merely analytical, academic, or even legal. They are social, political, and moral, and everyone’s business. And the stakes are high.
The book will be discussed by the author Martin Krygier AM, Anthony Mason Professor and Scientia Professor of Law Rosalind Dixon (UNSW) and Dr Michael Sevel, Senior Lecturer in Jurisprudence, Sydney University Law School, and editor of the Routledge Handbook of the Rule of Law.
Chaired by: Associate Professor Marc De Leeuw (UNSW).
Author biography:
Martin Krygier AM is Gordon Samuels Professor of Law and Social Theory, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney. He is the author of Philip Selznick: Ideals in the World (2012), Civil Passions (2005), and Between Fear and Hope (1997). He is also an editor of Anti-Constitutional Populism (2022); Spreading Democracy and the Rule of Law? (2006); Rethinking the Rule of Law after Communism (2005); The Rule of Law after Communism (1999); Marxism and Communism (1994); Bureaucracy: The Career of a Concept (1980). He was the winner of the 2016 Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory.
Reviews:
‘This is the manifesto that interdisciplinary scholars of political liberalism, of transitions away from tyranny, despotism, concentrated and wild power, have long awaited. Tempering Power presents a declaration of emancipation from the endless rule-of-law definitions, measurements, and implementation indicators that have diverted attention for too long from cornerstones of the good political society. By richly contextualizing rule-of-law, and its place among other social institutions, practices, and ways of being in society, Krygier turns our eyes upon a greater good, convincing us of a new and better way forward. Brilliantly crafted and engagingly accessible, this political sociology of law could not be more timely for scholars, citizens and rulers, as the seductions of untempered power are manifested by would-be demagogues on every continent.’
Terence Halliday - Research Professor Emeritus, American Bar Foundation, and co-editor of the book series on lawyers and political liberalism