McLaren, John (1996) Westminster abroad : fictions of power and authority in contemporary democracies. In: British Australian Studies Association Conference, 1996, University of Stirling. (Unpublished)

Abstract

The paper discusses the issues of power and justice as encountered by both revolutionaries and novelists, with the term ‘justice’ including the rights of individuals against the state, the rights of individuals to the protection of the state, and the rights of different ethnic, linguistic or religious groups within the state. The author theorises that while the law attempts to develop systems that regulate power by proclamation, statute or precedent, these systems inevitably reflect the existing distribution of power. Both revolutionaries and novelists have always appreciated that the clearer the constitutional arrangements the more they conceal this reality, yet revolution, like war, demands the complete subordination of the individual to its imperatives.

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