Description

‘When a renowned constitutional scholar explains why the law is not enough and is sometimes even the problem, we need to listen’
PETER GRAY, AUTHOR OF FREE TO LEARN

‘Skach convincingly tells us that laws and rules are not sufficient for living together in peace’
CARLO ROVELLI, AUTHOR OF SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS

‘This book will help you understand the mess we’re in while providing a roadmap for a better future’
BEN RAWLENCE

We believe that rules and laws are in place to protect us. They are what keep our societies from descending into chaos. Without them, how would we know our right from wrong, live comfortably in our communities and be good neighbours to one another?

C.L. Skach feels differently. She always believed in the strength of the law – she spent her career in some of the most fractured, war-torn corners of the world, reading and writing constitutions to help fix society. But as she sat alone in a sandbagged trailer in Baghdad after a rocket attack, she admitted what she’d been denying for years: a good society cannot be imposed from above. It comes from leaning less on formal rules, and more on each other.

Skach lays out six ideas, informed by everything from civil wars to civil rights struggles, bystander responsibility to mutual aid in the pandemic, to help us build small societies of our own. These ideas sometimes sound simple: share the vegetables from your garden, spend time on a park bench. But taken together they can amount to real, bottom-up change.

How to Be a Citizen is a hopeful handbook for a better world – one we can all help build together.

Publisher Review

Skach convincingly tells us that laws and rules are not sufficient for living together in peace — Carlo Rovelli Skach’s remarkable analysis will change how you see our current moment. The picture she paints of the failing rules-based world order is instantly recognisable. And the imaginative solutions for citizenship are lucid and compelling. This book will help you understand the mess we’re in while providing a roadmap for a better future — Ben Rawlence From a search for laws that can provide the basis for a good society, Skach leads us to re-examine the virtues of a good citizen, one whom people can respect and value as a member of their community — Roger Myerson, University of Chicago, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics When a renowned constitutional scholar explains why the law, enforced by a hierarchy of power, is not enough and is sometimes even the problem, we need to listen — Peter Gray, author of FREE TO LEARN Drawing on her experience and a wide range of studies by social scientists, Skach urges us to move away from relying on constitutional rules and authorities and toward a ‘guerilla’ constitutionalism in which we rely on our own resources and resilience to solve our problems . . . This is an incredibly thought-provoking work addressing the crises of governance we face today — Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School An important reflection on why even the best laws and constitutions can’t stand firm by themselves. In this quietly passionate book, Cindy Skach shows why the only cure for global democracy’s present ills is us: self-reflecting citizens who stand back from current fights and recognise how much humans everywhere are the same — Erica Benner, philosopher and author of ADVENTURES IN DEMOCRACY