How to Be a Citizen: Six Lessons for a Brave New World
C. L. Skach always believed in the strength of the law - she spent her career in some of the most fractured, war-torn corners of the world, writing constitutions to help fix society. But as she sat alone in a trailer in Baghdad after a rocket attack, she admitted what she'd been denying for years: a good society does not come from governments telling us what to do. It comes from us learning how to be better neighbours to one another.
In How to Be a Citizen Skach lays out six ideas, informed by her ethos of collective responsibility, for how we can be good citizens in a divided age. The result is an optimistic vision for a better future - and a tool for achieving it.
C. L. Skach (Cindy Skach) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna, and Emeritus Professor of Law, King’s College London. She was previously Professor of Comparative Government and Law at the University of Oxford and Associate Professor of Government, Harvard University. Having spent decades researching and writing about constitutions and other legal frameworks, advising governments as they amended, or drafted new, constitutions, Skach then began questioning our rigid fascination with the law, and our heavy reliance on it to solve social problems.
Reviews
Skach's remarkable analysis will change how you see our current moment. The picture she paints of the failing rules-based world order is instantly recognisable. And the imaginative solutions for citizenship are lucid and compelling. This book will help you understand the mess we're in while providing a roadmap for a better future -- Ben Rawlence
From a search for laws that can provide the basis for a good society, Skach leads us to re-examine the virtues of a good citizen, one whom people can respect and value as a member of their community -- Roger Myerson, University of Chicago, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics
When a renowned constitutional scholar explains why the law, enforced by a hierarchy of power, is not enough and is sometimes even the problem, we need to listen -- Peter Gray, author of FREE TO LEARN
Drawing on her experience and a wide range of studies by social scientists, Skach urges us to move away from relying on constitutional rules and authorities and toward a 'guerilla' constitutionalism in which we rely on our own resources and resilience to solve our problems . . . This is an incredibly thought-provoking work addressing the crises of governance we face today -- Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School
An important reflection on why even the best laws and constitutions can't stand firm by themselves. In this quietly passionate book, Cindy Skach shows why the only cure for global democracy's present ills is us: self-reflecting citizens who stand back from current fights and recognise how much humans everywhere are the same -- Erica Benner, philosopher and author of ADVENTURES IN DEMOCRACY
