The previous chapter described Earth’s orientation. I now build on that to construct orbital theory with a greater emphasis on vectors and coordinates than is traditional in that subject. I use Euler angles, rotation sequences, and the theory constructed around these in previous chapters to simplify what can often be a confusing barrage of notation in orbital theory. I include two very detailed examples here: sighting an Earth satellite and sighting Jupiter.

A victim is most obviously under the effective control of another where he or she has been formally deprived of liberty by the State and the perpetrator is a legal custodian. But a state of powerlessness may also arise in an extra-custodial law enforcement setting in certain circumstances. This chapter explores that dynamic, addressing the regulation of unlawful extra-custodial use of force by the police and other law enforcement officials, first as a manifestation of torture and then, in the more common alternative, as other proscribed ill-treatment.

Percy Shelley’s relationship to the so-called ‘Lake School’ Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey) has long been framed as a narrative of the earlier poets’ broken political commitments and the missed personal and emotional encounters of the ‘second-generation’ Romantic at his later post-revolutionary moment. Enriching the interpretive texture of this account, this chapter understands Shelley’s complex, productive relationship with Wordsworth, in particular, not simply through the charge of apostasy (political falling-away) but as an affective and poetic performance of inter-generational grief. I engage reading methods drawn from speech-act theory, affect studies, sociolinguistics, and deconstruction to show the weird temporalities of Shelley’s major poems addressing Lake Poet disconnection: ‘To Wordsworth’, Peter Bell the Third, and The Witch of Atlas. I conclude that Shelley’s generous lateral conception of unbounded agency opens his thinking up to an enlarged remit for receptive disappointments.

The Introduction starts by exploring three varieties of constitutional theory: normative, conceptual and positive. It then offers an account of the basic concept of a constitution, noting how it differs from its various conceptions. This section also defends the analytical structure of this volume into values, modalities and institutions as part of the basic concept of a constitution. The third section turns to constitutional norms, both written and unwritten, and their role within even a codified constitution. Finally, we look at the variety of constitutionalisms as a product of the essential contestability of the values, modalities and institutions of any conception of the constitution, be that conception theorised normatively, conceptually or positively (or draw on elements of all three approaches). This diversity is exemplified by the contrasting views of the contributors to this volume.

Constitutional hardball consists of practices that are consistent with the formal requirements of constitutional democracy but that destabilize and potentially transform it. This Chapter examines why political actors engage in hardball, focusing first on their short-term political motivations and then turning to the function of constitutional hardball within reasonably well-functioning constitutional democracies. The Chapter ends with a discussion of what might be done to convert constitutional hardball into ordinary political maneuvering, conclude that such efforts are unlikely to succeed and might be inappropriate (though not illiberal) efforts to halt more or less ordinary transformations in political practices.

Chapter 5 is devoted specifically to the history of the head-complement parameter. The first explicit proposals in this respect are found in Graffi (1980), Stowell (1981), and Travis (1984). Then, attention is focused on Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom and its contribution to the crisis of the head-complement parameter. After considering Chomsky’s (1995a, 1995b) Bare Phrase Structure theory, the discussion turns to the two current main hypotheses about head directionality: on the one hand, that linearization applies in the PF component, as proposed by Richards (2004, 2008); on the other hand, that linear order is determined within narrow syntax, as put forth by Biberauer and Roberts (2015) and Roberts (2019). The chapter ends with a review of Donati and Branchini’s (2013) experimental perspective on linearization, which supports the idea that linear order is part of externalization rather than narrow syntax.

Rigid-body dynamics uses vectors heavily, and in particular the angular velocity vector described in a previous chapter. I derive the main quantities and results of the subject: angular momentum, moment of inertia, torque, and the relevant conservation laws. Examples are the spinning top and precessing bicycle wheel. I also provide a detailed calculation of Earth’s precession period arising from the gravity of the Sun and Moon.

The rule of law is a normative political ideal. This chapter presents two approaches to understanding it. The first is the legal essentialist approach, which derives an account of the rule of law from an account of the essence of legality and legal systems. The second is the limited government approach, which derives an account from a normative theory proposing a role for law in opposing and negating the arbitrary power of persons over others. The chapter contends that the latter approach is more persuasive than the former. However, and despite recent refinements, the approach has a legacy of libertarian thinking and has not acknowledged what the author of this chapter refers to as a regulatory conception of the rule of law which has a prominent social dimension. The social dimension entails a duty founded upon the rule of law ideal to legally regulate private arbitrary powers whose exercise allows some to impose coercion as well as non-consensual exploitation on others. The regulatory conception and its social dimension help us understand the appropriate relationship between the rule of law and human rights, the welfare state, and democracy.

The constitutional review debate is highly abstract, often ignoring relevant procedural aspects, and defined by the unrepresentative case of the U.S. Supreme Court. This paper argues against a misleading generality and connects elements of a general critique with various forms of constitutional review. The fact that constitutional review cannot be justified by vague references to ‘rights’ or ‘reason’ raises two questions: Are there relevant differences in the justification (1) and decision-making procedures (2) of courts and legislatures? (1) The general assumption that courts lack democratic legitimacy ignores differences between courts with and without explicit constitutional review mandates. While insufficient to resolve the legitimacy question, such mandates necessitate focusing on a particular court rather than discussing constitutional review in general. (2) The relevance of procedural differences is often overlooked. Examples for this are the non-recognition of the difference between constitutional ‘settlements’ of rights cases by Congress and the Supreme Court, and the disregard for the political character of legal standards. Ultimately, an ambiguity between political, legal and moral constitutionalism becomes apparent. While the critique of constitutional review can be understood as a core topic of political constitutionalism, a community may well opt in favor of legal constitutionalism through its political organs.

Chapter 3 moves from street policing to interrogation. Numerous authors, from all points on the political spectrum, have advocated that police questioning of suspects be recorded. But police rarely tape custodial questioning, at least in full, and only a handful of courts have found this failure objectionable. In an effort to rejuvenate this debate, this chapter outlines three constitutional grounds for mandating that recording of interrogations become a routine practice. The first ground is based on the due process duty to preserve exculpatory evidence; although this argument has been raised before and has not fared well in the courts, it can be recast more persuasively and this chapter does so. The chapter then puts forward two new constitutional grounds for a taping requirement: the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, with an emphasis on how it functioned in colonial times (when interrogations were carried out by judges, not police), and the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation, which guarantees the accused the right to challenge the state’s evidence. If one of these arguments can win the day, it will revolutionize the interrogation process much more radically than did Miranda v. Arizona and its warning requirement.

This chapter rereads the appearance of the term “Renaissance” in the nineteenth century in Michelet, Ruskin, and Burckhardt as a revival of Shakespeare’s “mixed style”; the coining of the word “Renaissance,” it argues, is part of what Rancière calls aisthesis.

Chapter 1 sets the stage by comparing leadership elections in the two major UK parties following the Brexit referendum. While Conservative members of parliament acted swiftly to replace their leader, Labour was unable to follow suit, leading to an unprecedented internal crisis. These divergent paths, Kernell argues, can best be explained by attention to party rules. After briefly extending the comparison to discuss party rules in several other countries, Chapter 1 summarizes the book’s core arguments and the formal model, introduces the evidence, and provides a roadmap for the rest of the book.

This chapter begins from the premise that vocabularies matter in international law and organisation, as ideologies that can reify and make seem necessary and neutral contested and structurally biased means of governance, and in international relations, as disciplinary mechanisms of control. It advances a critical political economy approach to the language of resilience in global governance. By asking the critical political economy questions of ‘who gets what’ from resilience talk and just ‘whose resilience’ are we talking about, the chapter explores resilience as an ideology of new constitutionalism governance. Resilience talk is deconstructed as the language of capitalism, neoliberalism, and the individualisation of responsibility for crisis management. This language obscures the deep class, gender, racial, and intersectional implications of global governance initiatives. The chapter makes the case for destabilising and disrupting this discourse and practice as a necessary move in humanising important institutions of global governance.