Description

Democracy is government by the people. But which people? Many suppose the ideal of democracy itself has nothing to contribute to that question, and that a political community must instead be constituted by nationality, or history, or geography. I reject this and defend what I call the ‘succession condition’ for a democratic people. Along the way I distinguish popular sovereignty and democracy, and offer some comments about the last referendum on Scottish independence.

About The Speaker

Leslie Green is the Professor of the Philosophy of Law and Fellow of Balliol College. He also holds a part-time appointment as Professor of Law and Distinguished University Fellow at Queen’s University in Canada. After beginning his teaching career as a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, he moved to Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He has also been a visiting professor at many other law faculties, including Berkeley, NYU, Chicago and, for some years, at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Green writes and teaches in the areas of jurisprudence, constitutional theory, and moral and political philosophy. He serves on the board of several journals and is co-editor of the annual Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law and of the book series Oxford Legal Philosophy.