Law as a Social System
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a method to solve the problem of homonymity of homophily in the context of homomorphic data, and no abstracts are available.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine marriage equality through the eyes of the polyamorous community and analyze the main issues which make them reluctant to mobilize: their alternatives to material marriage rights, their concerns regarding political alliances and strategies, and their mistrust of law as a tool for shaping identities and designing interpersonal relationships.
Abstract: SUMMARY The paper examines marriage equality through the eyes of the polyamorous community. “Polyamory” is the practice of romantic relationships with more than one person, simultaneously, with the knowledge and consent of all parties. The Bay Area polyamorous community, albeit closely sympathetic to GLBT politics and particularly to bisexual activism, has not, so far, mobilized in a struggle for group marriage or other public status. Based on in-depth interviews with 35 community activists, the paper analyzes the main issues which make them reluctant to mobilize: their alternatives to material marriage rights, their concerns regarding political alliances and strategies, and–most importantly–their mistrust of law as a tool for shaping identities and designing interpersonal relationships.
36 citations
Cites background from "Law as a Social System"
...The interviewees seem to perceive law as a Luhmannian system which “thinks” in a certain rigid, coercive way (Luhmann, 2004; Teubner, 1983, 1989) that does not fit the way in which they would like to conceptualize their relationships....
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09 Mar 2018
Abstract: This thesis attempts to uncover how an American debate about legal unity is at the origins of the international investment regime. Although it is impossible to claim a univocal continuum from more than a century of professional experience in international law, this thesis attempts to show that there are continuities with today’s current debate on the constitutionalization of international law and, particularly, of the regime of international investment. Taking systems theory as its point of departure, this research adopts a concept of constitution that is the meaningful articulation of a prohibition of denial of justice. The procedural line that is activated by the articulation of the prohibition of the denial of justice is marked by a series of decisions that were empowered by legal norms, all of them loosely coupled to one another and to other social systems, making it possible to understand them in their historical context. The historical analysis begins, thus, with the very first moment where the concept of the prohibition of denial of justice emerged, and it explores the link between this concept and international law. In developing the development of federalism, the American Constitution created incentives for the Supreme Court to solve conflicts by establishing new empowering norms. Later on, this experience proved to be fundamental for the articulation, now on the international scene, of a concept of “denial of justice.” Finally, in light of this specific interpretation of constitutional norms within and beyond the states, the thesis claims that it is the principle, not a norm, of denial of justice that is at the heart of the current regime of international investment as a specific program designed by states to guarantee, in the transnational space, the structural coupling of law and economics— that is, property. By stressing that the concept of constitutionalism in the international scene can only be manifested through loose couplings, the very limits of this specific regime comes to light. International investment law is not necessarily a novelty within legal theory, which can account for its unity even in a pluralist setting, but this unity, as only loosely coupled with politics, is less open to inclusionary practices.
35 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, two citizens' initiatives in the Netherlands are analyzed in terms of their evolution, their organization and the strategies adopted, and strategies are viewed as the contingent product of a self-transforming organization, a way of relating its internal process to the outside world.
Abstract: Research on active citizenship tends to focus on the government perspective on initiatives from the public. In this paper we seek to redress the balance by focusing on the practice of citizens’ initiatives. Two citizens’ initiatives in the Netherlands are analyzed in terms of their evolution, their organization and the strategies adopted. Strategies are viewed here as the contingent product of a self-transforming organization, and a way of relating its internal process to the outside world. There is a mechanism at work in this interaction which enables initiators to connect with others successfully. Such interactions can therefore be seen as bonding processes, fueled by a process of self-transformation. Their ability to adapt and to mobilize people and institutions makes citizens’ initiatives plural in their manifestations and challenging for governance and steering.
35 citations
Cites background or methods from "Law as a Social System"
...With Seidl (2005) and Luhmann (1995, 2008), we presuppose a process to be at work in which images of the social context are produced in an internal discourse and where the identity (self-image) and strategies of a citizens’ initiative are adapted to the group’s shared assumptions about what is…...
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...This paper uses the ideas of Luhmann (1995, 2008) and the related ideas of Seidl (2005) to analyze strategies as the contingent product of a self-transforming organization which relates its internal process to the outside world....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors categorize three approaches to theorizing transnational legal ordering that respectively address private legal ordering; provide a framework for the study of the interaction of lawmaking and practice at the transnational, national, and local levels; and reconfigure the concept of law.
Abstract: This article categorizes three approaches to theorizing transnational legal ordering that respectively address private legal ordering; provide a framework for the study of the interaction of lawmaking and practice at the transnational, national, and local levels; and reconfigure the concept of law. The first approach develops theories of private legal ordering, involving lawmaking, adjudication, and enforcement through nonstate actors and institutions. The second approach provides a theoretical framework for sociolegal study of the transnational processes through which legal norms are constructed, flow, and settle across national borders. The third develops theory to critique and reformulate the concept of law in transnational terms that include nonstate processes.
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors empirically study the evolution of ownership disclosure rules across countries and show that these rules have become more stringent over time, in the sense that disclosure thresholds have been lowered, and that there has been convergence.
Abstract: In recent years, a number of regulators have launched proposals to expand the obligation to disclose major share ownership in listed companies. This article shows that these are not stand-alone developments. Using a unique dataset comprising data from 25 countries over 11 years (1995-2005), collected by the Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge, we empirically study the evolution of ownership disclosure rules across countries. The analysis demonstrates that these rules have become more stringent over time, in the sense that disclosure thresholds have been lowered, and that there has been convergence. A breakdown of the results suggests that the degree of countries' economic development is a relevant factor in explaining the differences between countries. The analysis also suggests a positive correlation between ownership disclosure and other variables that protect minority shareholders, as well as a positive correlation between the stringency of countries' ownership disclosure rules and the degree of dispersed ownership. In the article, we offer various possible explanations for these results. Looking to the future, while it appears unlikely that disclosure thresholds will be lowered much further, ownership disclosure rules can be expected to continue to evolve in other dimensions. Regulators are likely to broaden the definition of the stake that triggers disclosure, so as to ensure that the ultimate owner is reached. In addition, regulators may require more information be disclosed when the notification is made, so as to enable other investors and issuers to adequately assess the implications of major share ownership.
30 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how legal pluralism engages with legal globalization and how legal globalization utilizes legal plurality, and provide an outlook on the future of global legal plurality as theory and practice.
Abstract: Some challenges of legal globalization closely resemble those formulated earlier for legal pluralism: the irreducible plurality of legal orders, the coexistence of domestic state law with other legal orders, the absence of a hierarchically superior position transcending the differences. This review discusses how legal pluralism engages with legal globalization and how legal globalization utilizes legal pluralism. It demonstrates how several international legal disciplines—comparative law, conflict of laws, public international law, and European Union law—have slowly begun to adopt some ideas of legal pluralism. It shows how traditional themes and questions of legal pluralism—the definition of law, the role of the state, of community, and of space—are altered under conditions of globalization. It addresses interrelations between different legal orders and various ways, both theoretical and practical, to deal with them. And it provides an outlook on the future of global legal pluralism as theory and practic...
287 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: A growing body of literature in organization studies draws on the idea that communication constitutes organization, often abbreviated to CCO as discussed by the authors and introduces Luhmann's theory of social systems as a prominent example of CCO thinking.
Abstract: A growing body of literature in organization studies draws on the idea that communication constitutes organization, often abbreviated to CCO This paper introduces Luhmann’s theory of social systems as a prominent example of CCO thinking I argue that Luhmann’s perspective contributes to current conceptual debates on how communication constitutes organization The theory of social systems highlights that organizations are fundamentally grounded in paradox because they are built on communicative events that are contingent by nature Consequently, organizations are driven by the continuous need to deparadoxify their inherent contingency In that respect, Luhmann’s approach fruitfully combines a processual, communicative conceptualization of organization with the notion of boundary and self-referentiality Notwithstanding the merits of Luhmann’s approach, its accessibility tends to be limited due to the hermetic terminology that it employs and the fact that it neglects the role of material agency in the communicative construction of organizations
114 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The concept of transnational legal pluralism as mentioned in this paper has been proposed to understand the evolution of law in relation and response to the development of "world society" in the context of regulatory governance.
Abstract: This paper draws out the analogies and connections between long-standing legal sociological insights into pluralistic legal orders and present concerns with the fragmentation of law outside of the nation state. Within the nation-state, the discovery of legal pluralism inspired a larger contestation of concepts of legal formalism, of the alleged unity of the legal order and of the hierarchy of norms against the background of a consistently advancing process of constitutionalization. This research heightened regulators’ sensitivity to blind spots and exclusionary dynamics in the design of rights, leading inter alia to wide-ranging efforts to render more effective access to justice, legal aid and legal representation. Another important consequence concerned an increased awareness of different levels and sites of norm-creation in various societal areas. Much of this is mirrored by today’s quest for a just, democratic and equitable global legal order, for example in the debate about ‘fragmentation of international law’ or ‘global administrative law’. But, while the legal pluralism debate largely unfolded in the context (and contestation) of relatively mature legal orders and institutions, such institutional frameworks and safeguards are largely absent on the international plane. As a result, the emergence of numerous norm-setting agencies, specialized courts and tribunals and regulatory networks are perceived as obstacles or impediments to the creation of a sound legal order on a global scale, rather than as inherent traits of an evolving legal order.In order to grasp the increasingly transterritorial nature of regulatory governance it is necessary to revisit the arguments in support of legal pluralism and, in particular, the legal pluralist critique of the association of law with the state. On that basis, it becomes possible to read the currently dominant narrative of the ‘end of law’ in an era of globalisation in a different light. Rather than describing the advent of globalisation as an end-point of legal development, the transnational perspective seeks to deconstruct the various law-state associations by understanding the evolution of law in relation and response to the development of ‘world society’. The currently lamented lack of democratic accountability, say, in international economic governance, can then be perceived as a further consequence in a highly differentiated and de-territorialized society. The paper thus rejects the attempts by lawyers to re-align transnational governance actors with traditional concepts of the state or of civil society and, instead, contrasts them with various advances in sociology and anthropology with regard to the evolution of ‘social norms’ and ‘spaces’ of governance and regulation. These perspectives effectively challenge present attempts to conceptualize a hierarchically structured global legal order. This article’s proposed concept of ‘transnational legal pluralism’ [TLP] goes beyond Philip Jessup’s 1956 idea of ‘transnational law’, through which he sought to both complement and challenge Public and Private International Law. TLP brings together insights from legal sociology and legal theory with research on global justice, ethics and regulatory governance to illustrate the transnational nature of law and regulation, always pushing against the various claims to legal unity and hierarchy made over time.
81 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a perspective on the interaction between formal and informal institutions in spatial planning in which they transform each other continuously, in processes that can be described and analyzed as ongoing reinterpretations.
Abstract: In this article, we present a perspective on the interaction between formal and informal institutions in spatial planning in which they transform each other continuously, in processes that can be described and analyzed as ongoing reinterpretations. The effects of configurations and dialectics are often ambiguous, only partially observable, different in different domains and at different times. By means of analyses of key concepts in planning theory and practice, this perspective is illustrated and developed. Finally, we analyze transformation options in planning systems, emphasizing the limits of formal institutions in transforming formal/informal configurations, and stressing the importance of judgment and conflict.
79 citations
TL;DR: A review of the preceding scholarly work and attempts to contextualize it in debates around global governance and global constitutionalism can be found in this paper, where the authors suggest that we ought to revisit legal sociological insights into the emergence of legal pluralism.
Abstract: Transnational law, since its iteration by Philip Jessup in the 1950s, has inspired a league of scholars to investigate into the scope, doctrine, sources and practice of border-crossing legal regulation. This paper reviews much of this preceding scholarly work and attempts to contextualize it in debates around global governance and global constitutionalism. These debates are no longer confined to international lawyers or political scientists. Together with anthropologists, sociologists, geographers and legal philosophers and legal theorists, these scholars have been significantly widening the scope of their investigation. The current, multi - and interdisciplinary research into the prospects of political sovereignty, democratic governance and legal regulation on a global scale suggests a further continuation of such intellectual bricolage and collaboration. The here presented paper builds on a larger research project into the methodology of transnational law and suggests that we ought to revisit legal sociological insights into the emergence of legal pluralism to make sense of today’s co-evolution of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘public’ and ‘private’ laws – and social norms.
65 citations