The Pluralist State: The Political Ideas of J.N. Figgis and his Contemporaries

A critical account of the political pluralism of Figg's, Laski and other English writers of the early 20th century, indicating its whig roots in the previous century. Pluralists believed in liberty, preserved by power decentralized, and in group personality. Theories of sovereignty were rejected and a distinctive understanding of the state proposed. Pluralism is particularly relevant to a world where the omnicompetent state has increasingly been called into question and federal structures of authority are the order of the day.