The shapeshifting Crown : locating the state in postcolonial New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK / edited by Cris Shore, David V. Williams.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

1st edition

89394

Monarchy -- Great Britain.

Monarchy -- Australia.

Monarchy -- Canada.

Monarchy -- New Zealand.

State, The.

Postcolonialism.

Sovereignty.

Monarchy -- Commonwealth countries.

Commonwealth Countries -- Politics and government.

New Zealand -- Politics and government.

Australia -- Politics and government.

Canada -- Politics and government.

Great Britain -- Politics and government.

Commonwealth Countries -- History.

1. Introduction: a shapeshifting enigma: the Crown in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom

Part I. The nature and development of the Crown:

2. Genealogies of the modern Crown: from St Edward to Queen Elizabeth II

3. The Crown as metonym for the state? The human face of Leviathan

4. Indigenous peoples and the Crown: the sacred duty

Part II. The Crown as an embodied entity:

5. The rituals of Crown and state in New Zealand

6. Locating the Crown in Australia: the swag of Camp Gallipoli

7. Localising the Crown: royals and (re)patriation

Part III. The Crown and constitutional reform:

8. The Republican move: cutting colonial ties

9. Constitutional reform and the politics of public engagement

10. Crown prerogative: reining in the powers

11. The Queen is dead, long live the King?

12. Conclusion: the future of the Crown in an age of uncertainty: sempiternal or crumbling foundation?

The Crown stands at the heart of the New Zealand, British, Australian and Canadian constitutions as the ultimate source of legal authority and embodiment of state power. A familiar icon of the Westminster model of government, it is also an enigma. Even constitutional experts struggle to define its attributes and boundaries: who or what is the Crown and how is it embodied? Is it the Queen, the state, the government, a corporation sole or aggregate, a relic of feudal England, a metaphor, or a mask for the operation of executive power? How are its powers exercised? How have the Crowns of different Commonwealth countries developed? The Shapeshifting Crown combines legal and anthropological perspectives to provide novel insights into the Crown's changing nature and its multiple, ambiguous and contradictory meanings. It sheds new light onto the development of the state in postcolonial societies and constitutional monarchy as a cultural system. A novel anthropological analysis of the Crown and the political and legal work that it performs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Examines the Crown's fluid, contested and contradictory meanings and the implications of this for political legitimacy, sovereignty and governance in postcolonial societies. Provides comparative and ethnographic perspectives on the role of the Crown in postcolonial Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain, and assesses which country will be the first to become a republic. Analyses arguments about constitutional reform and offers new anthropological insights into the meanings of monarchy as a symbolic system - Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographic references and index.

9781108496469

xiii, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm