Why the Law Matters to You: Citizenship, Agency, and Public Identity

This book develops an account of legality that identifies the law as a constitutive feature of the identities of citizens of modern states. The law co-constitutes practical identities by maintaining the external preconditions that are necessary for actions performed under its authority. The book is a defense of the necessity of social institutions that employs resources from action theory as well as from social, political, and legal philosophy.