The Case Against Constitutional Reform

Proposals for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom are examined critically. Ideas of 'governance' as posited by various accounts in the literature of politics are compared with the simpler idea of 'government' that is predicated within the reform programme. It is argued that changes in the site of public power, as well as in the reality of its exercise through a range of bodies beyond the traditional state, now provide a much more complex situation than the reform programme acknowledges. The paper calls for the development of a new technology of constitutional control to capture fugitive power. The paper concludes with a brief examination of some newer theories of radical or participatory democracy and their potential to assist in a wider project of constitutional renewal.