How to Be a Citizen

C.L. Skach is a respected constitutional lawyer; she’s advised governments around the world, including Iraq, on developing their constitutions – rules-based order, if you will. Her career has been based on advising governments on how laws and constitutions could enhance and protect democracy. If these tools of democracy are so effective, why do we see a growing lack of trust in government and the rise of antidemocratic movements?

Skach argues that our reliance on rules is based on three fallacies – humankind needs authority and good order to exist; good order is imposed by authority and is stable; and constitutions give us a just order and therefore justice. She argues that these fallacies have actually withered our ability to do democracy well. Through research and case studies, Skach argues that communities naturally come together to find order that takes into account the needs of the members of those communities. By relying on arbitrary rules being interpreted by legal scholars, we lose our humanity. To overturn centuries of convention seems a very big ask, but Skach says we can start by developing our own small communities of mutual support and respect, and gradually change. I’m sure we all yearn for caring and respectful communities; is Skach’s solution the right one? You decide!