The logic of appropriateness is a perspective that sees human action as driven by rules of appropriate or exemplary behavior, organized into institutions Rules are followed because they are seen as natural, rightful, expected, and legitimate Actors seek to fulfill the obligations encapsulated in a role, an identity, a membership in a political community or group, and the ethos, practices and expectations of its institutions Embedded in a social collectivity, they do what they see as appropriate for themselves in a specific type of situation The paper is divided into five parts First, we sketch the basic ideas of rule-based action Second, we describe some characteristics of contemporary democratic settings Third, we attend to the relations between rules and action, the elements of slippage in executing rules Fourth, we examine the dynamics of rules and standards of appropriateness And, fifth, we discuss a possible reconciliation of different logics of action, as part of a future research agenda for students of democratic politics and policy making

The Logic of Appropriateness

To sketch an institutional approach, this paper elaborates ideas presented over 20 years ago in The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life (March and Olsen 1984). Institutionalism, as that term is used here, connotes a general approach to the study of political institutions, a set of theoretical ideas and hypotheses concerning the relations between institutional characteristics and political agency, performance and change. Institutionalism emphasizes the endogenous nature and social construction of political institutions. Institutions are not simply equilibrium contracts among self-seeking, calculating individual actors or arenas for contending social forces. They are collections of structures, rules and standard operating procedures that have a partly autonomous role in political life. The paper ends with raising some research questions at the frontier of institutional studies.

Elaborating the “New Institutionalism”

1. Power and global governance Michael N. Barnett and Raymond Duvall 2. Power, institutions, and the production of inequality Andrew Hurrell 3. Policing and global governance Mark Laffey and Jutta Weldes 4. Power, fairness and the global economy Ethan Kapstein 5. Power politics and the institutionalization of international relations Lloyd Gruber 6. Power, nested governance, and the WTO: a comparative institutional approach Greg Shaffer 7. The power of liberal international organizations Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore 8. The power of interpretive communities Ian Johnstone 9. Class powers and the politics of global governance Mark Rupert 10. Global civil society and global governmentality: or, the search for the political and the state amidst capillaries of power Ronnie Lipschutz 11. Governing the innocent? The 'civilian' in international law Helen Kinsella 12. Colonial and postcolonial global governance Himadeep Muppidi 13. Knowledge in power: the epistemic construction of global governance Emanuel Adler and Steven Bernstein.

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Power in global governance

Liberalism has difficulty with the fact of state borders. Liberals are, on the one hand, committed to moral equality, so that the simple fact of humanity is sufficient to motivate a demand for equal concern and respect. Liberal principles, on the other hand, are traditionally applied only within the context of the territorial state, which seems to place an arbitrary limit on the range within which liberal guarantees will apply. This difficulty is particularly stark in the context of distributive justice; state boundaries, after all, often divide not simply one jurisdiction from another, but the rich from the poor as well. Allowing these boundaries to determine distributive shares seems to place an almost feudal notion of birthright privilege back into the heart of liberal theory. This difficulty has led many philosophers to argue that some revision of liberal theory is necessary. These proposals frequently involve either the demand that liberalism focus on previously neglected particularistic commitments, or the demand that it abandon such local concerns and endorse a cosmopolitan vision of distributive justice. What I want to do in this article is identify a different way in which liberalism might deal with the worries created by the fact of state borders. My argument is that a globally impartial liberal theory is not in-

Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy

The rule of law is the most important political ideal today, yet there is much confusion about what it means and how it works. This 2004 book explores the history, politics, and theory surrounding the rule of law ideal, beginning with classical Greek and Roman ideas, elaborating on medieval contributions to the rule of law, and articulating the role played by the rule of law in liberal theory and liberal political systems. The author outlines the concerns of Western conservatives about the decline of the rule of law and suggests reasons why the radical Left have promoted this decline. Two basic theoretical streams of the rule of law are then presented, with an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of each. The book examines the rule of law on a global level, and concludes by answering the question of whether the rule of law is a universal human good.

On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory

Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

Law's Empire

The history of incorporations legislation and its administration is intimately tied to changes in social beliefs in respect to the role and purpose of the corporation. By studying the evolution of the corporate form in Britain and a number of its colonial possessions, the book illuminates debates on key concepts including the meanings of laissez faire, freedom of commerce, the notion of corporate responsibility and the role of the state in the regulation of business. In doing so, A Social History of Company Law advances our understanding of the shape, effectiveness and deficiencies of modern regulatory regimes, and will be of much interest to a wide circle of scholars.

A Social History of Company Law: Great Britain and the Australian Colonies 1854–1920

This article examines justifications for the colonisation of Australia. The apparent 'backwardness' of the natives and their reluctance to engage in trade was relied on to deny their claim to the territory they inhabited. The article also considers the metaphysical dimension of colonisation and the impact of 'imperialist nostalgia' in influencing the views of settlers.

Homesickness for a Foreign Country: Nostalgia and Colonisation

In the British colonies from the latter part of the nineteenth century one of the major indicia of whether a colonized economy was 'modernized' was the presence of company laws modelled on the English Companies Act. This paper examines the manner in which during the colonial period companies legislation in a number of colonial locales was often highly politicised rather than being 'apolitical' in nature. It is little noted in histories of company's law that in the colonies the legislation often had 'special' provisions inserted to accommodate 'special' circumstances existing in particular colonies. The presumed apolitical nature of companies laws is belied by practices such as typing companies by race in South Africa and, due to a distrust amongst colonists of indigenous Indian directors the use of the managing agent system in Indian companies law up to the time of independence. This paper also examines the responses of indigenous political and business leaders to companies at the time of decolonisation. Of particular interest are the attitudes of these leaders to the possible effects of this introduced legislative regime on traditional business structures and also their possible concerns as to the potential this legislation might hold for 'foreigners' being able to acquire significant influence locally through large shareholdings in local companies. In this respect the paper particularly focuses on Basutoland/Lesotho and the manner in which the introduction of 'modern' companies laws was discussed at the moment of decolonisation. The paper then traces the manner in which those laws have influenced subsequent economic developments in Lesotho and the salience or otherwise in hindsight of local leaders comments on the legislation at the point of decolonisation.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1135964_code515373.pdf?abstractid=1135964&mirid=3

The Flowers of Progress: Corporations Law in the Colonies

The introduction of British law into its colonies in the 18th and 19th centuries was a crucial part of the civilizing project; however, it was a difficult task. Despite a conscious effort to emulate their counterparts in Britain, local legal professions were constantly encountering problems in replicating British models in the quite different conditions existing in the colonies.

Rob McQueen

Papers

Law's Empire

A Social History of Company Law: Great Britain and the Australian Colonies 1854–1920

Homesickness for a Foreign Country: Nostalgia and Colonisation

The Flowers of Progress: Corporations Law in the Colonies

Misplaced Traditions: British Lawyers, Colonial Peoples