Contributions to a Post-Sovereigntist Understanding of Law

Foucault, Law as Governance, and Legal Pluralism

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12282968
AutoresKevin Walby (0000-0002-5107-2309, Carleton University, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume16
Fascículo4
Páginas551-571
Data de publicação2007-11-06
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial & Legal Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0964-6639 • E-ISSN: 1461-7390
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0964663907082735
OpenAlexW2117776332
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas22
Referências citadas37

This article proposes an understanding of law that goes beyond the popular association of law with sovereignty, constitutionalism and representative political institutions. By drawing on insights provided by the law as governance and `non-essentialist version of legal pluralism' approaches, the focus is on retrieving the specificity of plural legal and normative ordering strategies. The law as governance approach proposes a modest role for law where law is conceived as connectively situated among a multiplicity of other constitutive modes of regulation. The `non-essentialist version of legal pluralism' is a conventionalist rearticulation of the hitherto unproblematized tradition of legal pluralism. Comparing the law as governance and `non-essentialist version of legal pluralism' approaches contributes to a post-sovereigntist understanding of law. A post-sovereigntist understanding of law focuses on the state as a site for the unification of regulatory projects, but, inspired by Michel Foucault's later works, finds it important to place analyses of law within the context of a decentered economy of productive power and extensive government. This post-sovereigntist understanding not only provides a clearer depiction of the way legal and normative ordering and their interrelations work in the everyday, but raises questions regarding the future of legal pluralism in socio-legal theory

Empirical legal studies · Epistemology · Law and economics · Legal history · Legal pluralism · Legal profession · Legal realism · Philosophy of law · Pluralism (philosophy · Political science · Private law · Public law · Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Legal Issues in South Africa · Philosophy