The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

In the mirror literature, power and sovereignty are identified with the king’s person. The king’s conduct established a model, which his subjects would follow; consequently, the ruler’s actions and behaviour determined the nature of the polity. The king’s cultivation of virtue is, in consequence, a pragmatic as well as a moral imperative. The mirror-writers insist on the importance of the king’s self-discipline as a prerequisite for his governing other people; if he is unable to govern himself, he will be incapable of governing anyone else. The three extracts in this section describe the virtuous and effective king. From different perspectives, they treat some of the ethical and philosophical problems of human nature; in particular, they discuss how to strengthen, acquire and practise virtues and how to overcome and eradicate vices. The texts in this section are drawn from Yūsuf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib, Kutadgu bilig; al-Māwardī, Tashīl al-naẓar wa-taʿjīl al-ẓafar; and Kaykāʾūs, Qābūsnāmeh.