I thought you might be interested to learn of my own new book, Russia and the Rule of Law.
Essentially, it is a long essay on the evolution and decline of the principle of autocracy in government.
The book is a history of Russia and its relationship to the West. It tells the story of the “competition” between those countries which aspire to the rule of law and those which use force to project status, both internally and externally. Our system traces its roots back to Magna Carta while the latter derives from the statecraft and value system of the Mongols. Between them, they defined the terms of the eight-hundred year struggle between the principle of government by consent and its opposite: government by command. It has not stopped yet.
The rule of law is an ideal of government under which those who make the laws are appointed, and can be dismissed, by those who are expected to obey them. The Russian system is the opposite. As Catherine the Great wrote in 1767: “The Sovereign is absolute; for there is no other authority but that which centres in his [sic] single Person that can act with Vigour proportionate to the Extent of such a vast Domain.” That principle is still operative, especially in Russia today. Size confers status and therefore power over “little people(s)”.
In principle, there can be no compromise between autocracy and democracy, only an agreement to agree to disagree – but that is itself an anti-autocratic idea. To live and let live we need to understand the differences between Russia and the rule of law states, of which Britain was the first. Hence this book.
It was published last week, and can be ordered from Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HGGX7PZ7?utm
PS: You can now follow me on Facebook, at “Russia and the Rule of Law”.
