Suspended in 2025/26
LL201 One Unit
Law and State Power
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Thomas Poole
Availability
This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law, Erasmus Reciprocal Programme of Study, Exchange Programme for Students from University of California, Berkeley and LLB in Laws. This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course is available with permission to General Course students.
Course content
Outline:
The course provides an opportunity to take a deep dive into the modern state. We investigate how the state organises and exercises power, and how such power is legitimated and controlled. At all times we remain alert to the pathologies of state power - corruption, mismanagement, capture by elites - and what might be done to prevent them. Classic themes surrounding law and state power - such as tensions between technocracy and democracy, bureaucratic rationality and charismatic authority, agency autonomy and political accountability - are given contemporary resonance by studying topical themes of importance, such as populism and illiberal democracy, citizenship deprivation and the politics of pandemic management.
Syllabus:
Theories of power. The nature of the modern state. Law and government. Power and prerogative. Soft law: the role of policies and guidance in governance structures. Technocracy and democracy. Corruption and administration. The ‘contracting state’. Risk and the regulatory state. Crisis management including COVID-19 case study. The legal control of state power. Biopolitics - citizenship deprivation and the Illegal Migration Bill.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.
Formative assessment
At least one formative essay per term.
Indicative reading
Martin Loughlin, The Idea of Public Law (Oxford, 2004)
Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings, Law and Administration (Cambridge, 4th ed., 2021)
Assessment
Exam (100%), duration: 210 Minutes in the Spring exam period
Key facts
Department: LSE Law School
Course Study Period: Autumn and Winter Term
Unit value: One unit
FHEQ Level: Level 5
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 23
Average class size 2024/25: 23
Capped 2024/25: Yes(30)Course selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills