Law without the State: Legal Attributes and the Coordination of Decentralized Collective Punishment
11 Feb 2013-Journal of Law and Courts (University of Chicago PressChicago, IL)-Vol. 1, Iss: 1, pp 3-34
Abstract: Most social scientists take for granted that law is defined by the presence of a centralized authority capable of exacting coercive penalties for violations of legal rules. Moreover, the existing approach to analyzing law in economics and positive political theory works with a very thin concept of law that does not account for the distinctive attributes of legal order as compared with other forms of social order. Drawing on a model developed elsewhere, we reinterpret key case studies to demonstrate how a theoretically informed approach illuminates questions about the emergence, stability, and function of law in supporting economic and democratic growth.
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01 Jan 2011TL;DR: In this article, a case study about a services coalition in a developing country that provides a viable solution to developing the services sector in a country is presented. The focus of the case study is Barbados, a very small island (166 square miles) in the Caribbean with a population of 280,000 people.
Abstract: This case study is about a services coalition in a developing country that provides a viable solution to developing the services sector in a country. The focus of the case study is Barbados, a very small island (166 square miles) in the Caribbean with a population of 280,000 people. Services constitute 84 per cent of the island’s GDP. Services also constitute two-thirds of the world’s economy and form the fastest growing component of world trade.
64 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts and conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order.
Abstract: Many social scientists rely on the rule of law in their accounts of political or economic development. Many however simply equate law with a stable government capable of enforcing the rules generated by a political authority. As two decades of largely failed efforts to build the rule of law in poor and transition countries and continuing struggles to build international legal order demonstrate, we still do not understand how legal order is produced, especially in places where it does not already exist. We here canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts. We conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order. We then discuss our recent effort to develop the missing microfoundations of legal order to provide a better framework for future work on the rule of law.
58 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts and conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order.
Abstract: Many social scientists rely on the rule of law in their accounts of political or economic development. Many, however, simply equate law with a stable government capable of enforcing the rules generated by a political authority. As two decades of largely failed efforts to build the rule of law in poor and transition countries and continuing struggles to build international legal order demonstrate, we still do not understand how legal order is produced, especially in places where it does not already exist. We here canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts. We conclude that this literature has failed to produce a microfoundational account of the phenomenon of legal order. We then discuss our recent effort to develop the missing microfoundations of legal order to provide a better framework for future work on the rule of law.
52 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply the concept of "efficient anarchy" to legal titling in rural Afghanistan, and show that anarchy of land governance is a better option than legal Titling.
Abstract: Scholars and policymakers prescribe legal titling to improve prospects for economic development and political order However, a public choice literature exists that has long recognized that self-governance often works well and that the state may not be able to improve upon local economic institutions at reasonable cost Although the implication that legal titling should proceed with caution is seemingly straightforward, the literature on legal titling does not take anarchy seriously as a policy option In addition, there is a public choice literature that presumes the state is the most important source of property rights This essay fills this gap in the property rights literature by applying the concept of “efficient anarchy” to legal titling in Afghanistan Original fieldwork evidence from rural Afghanistan suggests that anarchy of land governance is a better option than legal titling The essay concludes by opening up the black box of state building by explaining why it often makes sense to sequence improvements in political capacity and political constraints prior to investing in legal titling
48 citations
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TL;DR: In the last scene of Joanna Baillie's Witchcraft (1836), a strangled corpse of a young woman is brought downstage in the last act as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Against a background of three stakes set for burning, the strangled corpse of a young woman is brought downstage in the last scene of Joanna Baillie's Witchcraft (1836). Is she a victim of witchcraft? A witch herself? As I will show, the enigma of this corpse exemplifies the unpredictable dialectical relationship between evidence and belief that is both Baillie's topic and the basis for her dramatic technique. Her play interestingly juxtaposes the problem of belief in witches with problems in the history of criminal evidence-historically related phenomena in Baillie's native Scotland-while also entertaining questions regarding what a play's audience can be brought to believe.
3 citations