Civil order on just terms: Advancing the political turn in criminal law

The central ground of the liberal state's legitimacy is the claim that it alone can provide conditions of order and stability. The state asserts its authority through criminal law to set and police the norms upon which order depends. Yet we need to ask to whom order is promised, whose voice counts, and who is excluded. Legal theorists often contend that criminal law reflects the common values of the polity and holds citizens to account as members of a cohesive political community. However, contemporary institutions of law and order yield to calls for public safety and national security that render citizenship conditional on conformity with problematic notions of civility. Majoritarian demands for order make outsiders of those considered suspect, uncivil or disorderly. If the pursuit of order is not to defeat itself by ceding to populist pressures, a fairer, more tolerant and inclusive vision of what civil order demands is needed. This analysis of the political and legal institutions and processes by which state coercive power is exercised in England and Wales explores how civil order might be achieved by legitimate means and on just terms.