The Shapeshifting Crown - Locating the State in Postcolonial New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK

The Crown, bedrock of the constitution and ultimate source of state power, is a legal fiction; ambiguous, enigmatic, poorly understood, yet politically expedient. This book combines anthropological and legal perspectives to unravel its shapeshifting nature and the work that it performs in postcolonial New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Britain.