Over the last 25 years, UK governments have faced a series of challenges and changes of an intensity almost unprecedented in peacetime: some thrust upon them, some of their own making. Developments whose impact on the executive's place in the constitution are analysed in this volume include the global financial crisis in 2007/08, the 1997 Labour Government's programme of constitutional reform, the unexpected referendum result on withdrawal from the EU in 2016, the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2020, and the energy and cost of living crisis that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The volume's conception of the UK's executive government is of an autonomous actor within the constitution, endowed with significant discretion in relation to its own organisation and modes of operation. By examining how governments have responded to those developments--through the reform of executive institutions and their deployment of the essential governmental resources of people, money, laws, and information--, Executive Self-Government and the Constitution opens a window on the internal operations of the contemporary executive and permits an assessment of the resilience of its key constitutional characteristics. Building on the analysis of their original leading work The Executive in the Constitution (OUP 1999), Executive Self-Government and the Constitution assesses how the economic and political turbulence faced by successive governments since 1997 has affected its key constitutional features.
Read more
This book offers a constitutional lawyer's insight into the UK executive government's internal workings, showing how its institutions and systems have operated and evolved over the past 25 years. Has this testing period changed its constitutional profile--its concern to protect its autonomy, its plural structure, its system of internal control?
Read more
PART A. INTRODUCTION 1: The Executive in the Constitution: Forces for Change 1997-2024 PART B. THE STRUCTURE OF THE EXECUTIVE 2: The Centre of Government: Bigger and Stronger? Or Just Bigger? 3: The Ministerial Department: Making and Breaking, Structuring, Steering 4: Public Bodies: Creation, Culling, Classification, and Patronage 5: Devolution: From 'Devolve and Forget' to 'Protect and Respect' PART C. THE RESOURCES OF THE EXECUTIVE: PEOPLE 6: The Civil Service: The Continuing Failure of Reform PART D. THE RESOURCES OF THE EXECUTIVE: MONEY 7: Fiscal Responsibility and Expenditure Planning and Control 8: Spending Responsibly: Expenditure Principles and Treasury Control PART E. THE RESOURCES OF THE EXECUTIVE: LAW 9: How Government Lawyers Advise Ministers and Manage Prosecutions 10: Shaping Legislation, Exploiting Delegated Legislation, Reining in Regulation PART F. THE RESOURCES OF THE EXECUTIVE: INFORMATION 11: Government Information: Privileges, Constraints, and Obligations 12: Government Communications: Persuasion with Propriety PART G. CONCLUSION 13: The Impact of 21st-Century Challenges
Read more
Terence Daintith is Emeritus Professor of Law, and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, where he was Director from 1988 to 1995. Before that, he taught at the Universities of California (Berkeley), Edinburgh, and Dundee, and was a research professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. From 1994 until 2002, he was Dean of the University of London's School of Advanced Study, grouping its research institutes in the humanities and social sciences. He holds honorary doctorates in law from De Montfort University and the University of Aberdeen. Alan Page is Emeritus Professor of Public Law at the University of Dundee, where he was Professor of Public Law from 1985 to 2020. Before that he taught at the Universities of Cardiff and Westminster. He has acted as a specialist adviser to committees in the UK and Scottish Parliaments, most recently and extensively in connection with the UK's withdrawal from the EU. He has also acted as an adviser to international organisations including the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). He was a member of the Independent Review of Administrative Law (the Faulks Review, CP 407, 2021).
Read more
Presents the first comprehensive public law treatment of developments in the UK's executive government since 1997 Builds upon the authors' earlier authoritative treatment of its subject matter: The Executive in the Constitution Examines recent political and administrative history from a constitutional law standpoint, providing new insights to social scientists
Read more

Product details

ISBN
9780198863540
Published
2025
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Weight
852 gr
Height
240 mm
Width
163 mm
Thickness
33 mm
Age
P, UP, 06, 05
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Number of pages
480

Biographical note

Terence Daintith is Emeritus Professor of Law, and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, where he was Director from 1988 to 1995. Before that, he taught at the Universities of California (Berkeley), Edinburgh, and Dundee, and was a research professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. From 1994 until 2002, he was Dean of the University of London's School of Advanced Study, grouping its research institutes in the humanities and social sciences. He holds honorary doctorates in law from De Montfort University and the University of Aberdeen. Alan Page is Emeritus Professor of Public Law at the University of Dundee, where he was Professor of Public Law from 1985 to 2020. Before that he taught at the Universities of Cardiff and Westminster. He has acted as a specialist adviser to committees in the UK and Scottish Parliaments, most recently and extensively in connection with the UK's withdrawal from the EU. He has also acted as an adviser to international organisations including the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). He was a member of the Independent Review of Administrative Law (the Faulks Review, CP 407, 2021).