A Philosophical History of Police Power - Paperback

by Melayna Kay Lamb (Author)

Rethinking the philosophical grounds of police power, Melayna Lamb argues that traditional ideas of sovereignty and the law need to be radically re-evaluated. In placing police at the centre of analysis this book demonstrates the manner in which police power exists in a complex and overlapping relationship with sovereignty and law in a form which is not reducible to implementation. In doing this it argues for the centrality of order in any consideration of police and challenging a common narrative whereby a dynamic, interventionist sovereign power that follows from a belief of order as 'artificial' is replaced by a liberal, limited non-interventionist sovereign power that proceeds from a 'natural' order. Moving through thinkers such as Hobbes, Hegel and Adam Smith the book argues that police power is in fact an-archic in form, in a manner that makes it impossible to hold accountable through the law.

Author Biography

Melayna Kay Lamb is a Lecturer at the University of Law, London, UK.