Browse

Legal geography argues that nearly every aspect of law is located, takes place, is in motion, or has some spatial frame of reference. In other words, law is always “worlded” in some way. Likewise, every bit of social space, lived places, and landscapes is inscribed with legal significance. Such fragments of a socially segmented world—the where of law—are not simply inert sites; they are also inextricably implicated in how law happens. The Expanding Spaces of Law offers a collection of innovative chapters that extend the reach of legal geography by opening this academic project up to new perspectives, new problematics, new topics, and—crucially—new voices. The contributors include both recognized and emerging scholars whose home disciplines are law, geography, sociology, and anthropology, and whose primary commitment is to deepening interdisciplinary modes of social inquiry. The introduction presents a thorough overview of the project from its inception in the 1980s through its bridge-building phase in the 1990s, to the more pluralistic, transdisciplinary work of the twenty-first century, suggesting directions for future research. Substantive chapters cover sophisticated critiques of the concepts of time and temporality that inform conventional approaches to legal space; the utility of pragmatism, ethnomethodology, comparative law, and procedural law; spatio-legal studies of the military, street vending, rurality; and governing through emotions at work.

This substantially revised second edition delivers an introduction to the life and works of H. L. A. Hart, noted Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford from 1952 to 1968. Hart established a worldwide reputation through his powerful philosophical arguments and writings in favor of liberalizing criminal law and applying humane principles to punishment. This book demonstrates that he also made important contributions to analytical jurisprudence, notably by clarifying many terms and concepts used in legal discourse, including the concept of law itself. Taking into account developments since the first edition was published, it provides a constructively critical account of Hart's legal thought. The work includes Hart's ideas on legal reasoning, judicial discretion, the social sources of law, the theory of legal rules, the sovereignty of individual conscience, the notion of obligation, the concept of a right, and the relationship between morality and the law. The book actively engages with current scholarly interpretations, bringing this account of England's greatest legal philosopher of the twentieth century up-to-date.

Though many legal theorists are familiar with Jürgen Habermas's work addressing core legal concerns, they are not necessarily familiar with his earlier writings in philosophy and social theory. Because Habermas's later work on law invokes, without significant explanation, the whole battery of concepts developed in earlier phases of his career, even otherwise sympathetically inclined legal theorists face significant obstacles in evaluating his insights. A similar difficulty faces those outside the legal academy who are familiar with Habermas's earlier work. While they readily comprehend Habermas's basic social-theoretical concepts, without special legal training they have difficulty reliably assessing his recent engagement with contemporary legal thought. This new work bridges the gap between legal experts and those without special legal training, critically assessing the attempt of an unquestionably preeminent philosopher and social theorist to engage the world of law.

Law calls communities into being and constitutes the “we” it governs. This act of defining produces an outside as well as an inside, a border whose crossing is guarded, maintaining the identity, coherence, and integrity of the space and people within. Those wishing to enter must negotiate a complex terrain of defensive mechanisms, expectations, assumptions, and legal proscriptions. Essentially, law enforces the boundary between inside and outside in both physical and epistemological ways. This book explores the ways law identifies and responds to strangers within and across borders. It analyzes the ambiguous place strangers occupy in communities not their own and reflects on how dealing with strangers challenges the laws and communities that invite or parry them. As the book reveals, strangers are made through law, rather than born through accidents of geography.

This book is a project of exploration and resuscitation of idea of utopianism within legal discourse. Instead of mapping out the contours of a familiar terrain, the contributors seek to explore the possibilities of a productive engagement between the utopian and the legal imagination. They will attempt to answer questions such as: Is it possible to re-imagine or revitalize the concept of utopia such that it can survive the terms of the mid-century liberal critique? Alternatively, is it possible to re-imagine the concept of utopia and the theory of liberal legality so as to dissolve the apparent antagonism between the two? In charting possible answers to these questions, the introduction to this volume expresses the editors’ hope to revive interest in a vital topic of inquiry too long neglected by both social thinkers and legal scholars.

This book presents a comparison between the legal realists, a group of pragmatic legal theorists from the 1920s and 1930s, and critical legal studies, a movement of postmodern legal theory during the end of the twentieth century. It argues for a return to legal realism and the classical pragmatism of John Dewey and William James, and for a rejection of the postmodern critique of critical legal studies. The book discusses the two movements with respect to three topics: their view of history, their view of social science, and their view of language. Rejecting the claim that critical legal studies can be seen as the heir of legal realism, it argues that, with respect to each of these three topics, the realists still present a stronger argument than their more radical descendants.

Philip Selznick's wide-ranging writings engaged with fundamental questions concerning society, politics, institutions, law, and morals. Never confined by a single discipline or approach, he proved himself a major figure across a range of fields including sociology, organizations and institutions, leadership, political science, sociology of law, political theory, and social philosophy. This book-length treatment of Selznick's ideas discusses his various intellectual contributions. Reading across Selznick's work, one appreciates the coherence of his fundamental preoccupations—with the social conditions for frustration and the vindication of values and ideas. Exploring Selznick's insights into the nature and quality of institutional, legal, and social life, the book also examines his particular ways of thinking, concerns, values, and sensibility. The book brings to light the coherence of Selznick's fundamental preoccupations, allowing readers to engage with his unique insights and distinctive moral-intellectual sensibility.

This book explores the ways law both traffics in and regulates secrecy. Taking a close look at the opacity built into legal and governance processes, it explores the ways law produces zones of secrecy, the relation between secrecy and justice, and how we understand the inscrutability of law's processes. The first half of the work examines the role of secrecy in contemporary political and legal practices—including the question of transparency in democratic processes during the Bush Administration, the principle of public justice in England's response to the war on terror, and the evidentiary law of spousal privilege. The second half of the book explores legal, literary, and filmic representations of secrets in law, focusing on how knowledge about particular cases and crimes is often rendered opaque to those attempting to access and decode the information. Those invested in transparency must ultimately cultivate a capacity to read between the lines, decode the illegible, and acknowledge both the virtues and dangers of the unknowable.