Introduction 1. The orthodox theory of order in world politics 2. The Grotian theory of the law of nations 3. Colonialism, imperialism and extra-European international politics 4. Two patterns of modern international order: toleration and civilisation 5. Order in contemporary world politics, global but divided Conclusion.

/pdf/beyond-the-anarchical-society-grotius-colonialism-and-order-569a6vm4tz.pdf

Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics

One striking feature of American courts is the widespread practice of plea bargaining. Paradoxically, the practice rewards precisely those who appear guilty. Contrary to popular perception of plea bargaining as an innovation or corruption of the post-World War II years, this study shows the practice to have emerged early in the American republic. Amid social conflict wrought by industrialization, immigration, and urbanization during the Age of Jackson, politicians acutely realized the potential for revolution in Europe. Local political institutions being spare and fragmentary, the courts stepped forward as agents of the state to promote social order necessary for healthy market functioning, personal security, and economic growth. Plea bargaining arose during the 1830s and 1840s as part of a process of political stabilization and an effort to legitimate institutions of self-rule-accomplishments that were vital to Whig efforts to reconsolidate the political power of Boston's social and economic elite. To this end, the tradition of episodic leniency from British common law was recrafted into a new cultural form-plea bargaining-that drew conflicts into courts while maintaining elite discretion over sentencing policy. In a society where it is said that "law is what the courts do," one notable feature of American justice is the practice of plea bargaining. As we think about the origins of law and social ordering, too often we downplay human agency and choose instead to highlight the nation-state and powers of coercion (Arendt 1958; Meyer & Hannan 1979; Abrams 1982; Soysal 1994). State action from the top down has eclipsed the ways that the initiatives of civil society and social movements have shaped the state from the bottom up.l Only recently have stories of local voluntarism and contestation, along with their effects on state formation, been more widely told (Sewell 1980; Skocpol 1992; Somers 1996). This study examines one pathbreaking local transformation in the American courts-the rise of plea bargaining-that profoundly changed the nature of criminal justice. In exploring plea bargaining, I examine causal forces and dynamics of varied temporal rhythms and highlight the transformative power of events at crucial moments in history (Sewell 1996; Gramsci 1971). Focusing on social transformation, I present a layered dynamic account of how plea bargaining came into being. Theoretically, the account enriches our understanding of the relative institutional autonomy of the courts. By focusing on change as a complement to the social reproduction emphasized by the new institutionalism, it also deepens our knowledge about how institutions and culture adapt to contestation and disruptive events as part of a process of constitutive social change (Vogel 1988). Though highly controversial, the origins of plea bargaining are surprisingly obscure. While often thought to be either an innovation or a corruption of the courts after World War II, it has much deeper historical roots.2 Understanding these beginnings lends insight into the problems the practice presents today. My purpose here is to explain why plea bargaining arose when and where it did and why it took the cultural form that it did. This study shows that the social forces that produced plea bargaining are very different from those to which it is usually attributed. The significance of plea bargaining lies in the fact that, by the late l9th century, most cases in the criminal courts were being resolved through this process. Although the popular image is one of jury trials with a presumption of innocence, a very different process has anchored the American courts. To explain the rise of plea bargaining, I explore its beginnings in antebellum Boston-the first sustained instance of the practice known to exist.3 Boston was a national center of legal innovation from which many legal ideas and practices spread to other cities through diffusion (Novak 1996). Plea bargaining very probably was one such distributed legal innovation. …

/pdf/the-social-origins-of-plea-bargaining-conflict-and-the-law-aj7x1yrwvu.pdf

The Social Origins of Plea Bargaining:: Conflict and the Law in the Process of State Formation, 1830-1860

This thesis develops a new ideal type of modern international society by exploring the affinities between certain solidarist features of the order that exists in contemporary world politics and the 'colonising ethic'. The purpose of this analysis is to reconstruct the Grotian tradition of international theory, by challenging Hedley Bull's representation of modern international society as an anarchical society of states, which has contributed to the view that the solidarist elements of Grotian thought are nostalgic 'neo-medievalism' or utopian prescriptions for the future. Bull's description of modern international society has three principal components; an absolutist interpretation of Hugo Grotius's international political theory; a 'Westphalian' account of the origins of modern international society; and an account of the expansion of international society through the imposition of the 'standard of civilisation' on non-European states. The thesis develops a different ideal type of modern international society by reappraising these elements of Bull's argument. It offers a non-absolutist interpretation of Grotius's conception of the law of nations, highlighting his ideas of appropriation and divisible sovereignty. Then, to explain the origins of modern international society, the thesis demonstrates the affinity between these concepts and colonisation in the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies and North America. This illustrates the ethical system embedded in the practice of colonisation: the 'colonising ethic'. To explain how this international society expanded to global extension, the thesis then shows how the Grotian concepts of appropriation and divisible sovereignty formed important parts of Dutch colonial administration in Indonesia and the westward expansion of the American states-union. This provides the basis for a novel interpretation of three elements of order in contemporary world politics: the apparent tension between state sovereignty and human rights; the partial centralisation of authority in international society; and the justification of resistance through international norms.

The colonising ethic and modern international society : a reconstruction of the Grotian tradition of international theory

On 1 June 1779, Thomas Jefferson became the second governor of the state of Virginia. Shortly thereafter, he was elected to the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary where he pursued a series of educational innovations that he had unsuccessfully promoted earlier while engaged in his mammoth revision of the laws of Viriginia. The goal of Jefferson's proposed educational reforms was the creation of an educational system which would be a training ground for republican citizenship. It is therefore of interest that among the innovations he pressed on the College of William and Mary was the establishment of the first chair of law in North America—indeed the first chair anywhere after the Vinerian chair at Oxford. What is of greater interest, however, is that the chair that Jefferson pioneered was not a chair of law, as such, but a chair of “Law and Police.”

Law, Police, and the Pursuit of Happiness in the New American Republic

This study of a dozen American films featuring the American Revolution (released 1939–2002) evaluates the major characters (patriots and loyalists), diverse plots, and various social/class themes. Cinematic and popular culture understandings of the revolution are compared with the interpretations of historians to reveal thematic consistencies, noteworthy variations, and conceptual gulfs between filmmakers and historians.

Patriots, Villains, and the Quest for Liberty: How American Film has Depicted the American Revolution

Preface Introduction 1. Puritan New England 2. Colonial Virginia 3. Conclusion: the problem of political legitimacy in Early America 4. An essay on the sources Index.

Kenneth A. Lockridge

Papers

Settlement and unsettlement in early America : the crisis of political legitimacy before the Revolution