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Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire. By Thomas Poole [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. xii + 302 pp. Hardback £69.99. ISBN 978-1-107-08989-1.]

One of the perennial challenges of political theory is the tension between two apparently incompatible models of government that polities fluctuate between: the rule of law and the rule of men. The latter need not necessarily be a lugubrious model of government. Both may be deeply concerned with ensuring that the well-being of the citizen be the paramount concern of the state. It may well be that, for both models of government, in Cicero’s words, salus populi suprema lex esto. When polities sway towards the rule of law, they will endeavour to ensure citizens’ well-being by constraining through law the powers of those who govern. Their hope is that, by making government accountable towards citizens, government will indeed respect Cicero’s maxim. Most polities, even illiberal ones, will have tendencies to embrace the rule of law model. However, all polities, even the most liberal ones, will at some point sway towards the model of rule by men, especially when the safety or vital interests of the polity are at risk: this model will free government from the hard shackles of the law in the hope that unbounded discretion will enable government to ensure salus populi. Several efforts have been made throughout the history of the British constitution to minimise the rule of men model of government. Thomas Poole’s overarching thesis in Reason of State is that such efforts will never succeed in eliminating that model altogether. Rather than using the idiom of “rule of men”, Poole uses that of “reason of state”. He concludes his book by saying that “reason of state cannot be eliminated altogether or reserved for moments of real emergency. But it can be given greater legal specification and channelled through normal constitutional processes” (p. 289). If we are to believe him then, at least in the context of the British constitution, the struggle between the rule of law and the rule of men will never result in a total annihilation of the latter model of government. While Poole’s thesis is compelling and intriguing, not all of his probable audiences will be equally enthused about his execution of his argument. Three audiences whom Poole appears to address are students of the history of ideas, public lawyers and (legal and political) philosophers. The latter two will find only few nibbles throughout the book to whet their appetites. Students of the history of ideas are the most likely to be sated by Poole’s book. In fact, out of the eight chapters of the book, chapters 2–7 provide a very helpful introduction to the political philosophy of several (and mostly) British theorists. The focus is on how these theorists have sought to resolve the tension between the rule of law and the rule of men. Chapter 2 starts at the beginning of the seventeenth century with Hobbes. Of the theorists discussed in the book, Hobbes was perhaps the most sympathetic theorist to the idea of the rule of men or, in his case, the rule of the sovereign. We are reminded that the Hobbesian sovereign, while entitled to absolute obedience to his laws from his citizens, “must have at his disposal a spectrum of special legal and extra-legal capacities up to and including the power to dispense with particular laws and the power to act ruthlessly . . . where the public interest demands it” (p. 56). Most of the theorists whom we encounter in subsequent chapters seem to have been repelled by this – certainly, the Republican theorists writing towards the end of the seventeenth century whom we encounter in chapter 3 (Nedham, Cambridge Law Journal, 75(3), November 2016, pp. 620–655