Public law theory includes executive power and populism, Constitutional Theory, Public Law and Political Economy, tackling fundamental questions about the exercise of state power and authority. It asks historical questions about the origin, development and trajectory of state power, analytical questions about the type of power and authority exercised by the state and its relation to other sources of power and authority, and normative questions about the state’s legitimacy. It looks at different forms of governing rationality, at the relationship between law and politics, and at the function of law in distinct regimes, specifically modern democracy. This raises questions about the constitutional role of different branches of government, about the separation of powers in the constitutional state, and about the relationship between formal legal power and the informal powers exercised in society.
The public law theory group studies the current conditions of public law as well as the origins of modern public law and its evolution. Specifically, members of the hub examine contemporary issues of the growth of executive power, authoritarianism and populism, the law and political economy of the modern state and inter-state system, the legacy for public law of imperialism and colonialism, and the role of political parties in the exercise of public power.