Political Theory

This latest volume of the Bentham Collected Works is as handsomely and thoroughly produced as its predecessors. Political Tactics, written towards the end of the eighteenth century, was an early attempt to write theoretically about parliamentary procedure. The analysis, based on the experience of the two British houses of parliament, is seen as the model for those rules necessary for every such assembly. The various versions and translations of the work gave it a readership in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal and even at this distance of time it reads as clearly and as relevantly now as it did then. As a way of illustration, Chapter II on Publicity is more careful and incisive for the present debate on freedom of information than most modern material, and it is clear as to the reason for such publicity – distrust. ‘Whom ought we to distrust, if not those to who is committed great authority, with great temptations to abuse it?’ Bentham’s treatment of this issue indicates clearly that this is a book which will be of interest to modern constitutionalists as well as to the more obvious audience of students of nineteenth century political thought and parliamentary practice.