Ideals and Practices in the Rule of Law: An Essay on Legal Politics

Massoud, Mark Fathi

doi:10.1111/lsi.12196

Cited by 31 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…92 The transformation of the normative question into an empirical one also prompts a reflection on what might be lost. Socio-legal critiques of 'uncritical enthusiasm for legal solutions, like constitutionalism, to the state's ills' may have had such bite that they are now operationalised, 93 such that constitutional principle may be subsumed into empirically-oriented pragmatism, and constitutional theory may be displaced by empirical method. This is more than an esoteric transformation.…”

Section: Contemporary Rule Of Law Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Rule of Law Reform: From Delegation to Autonomy

Desai

2020

Modern Law Review

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How can we understand the delegation of power and authority-for example, from a polity to an administrator-in a world of fragmented governance? In this paper, I introduce the practices of contemporary 'rule of law' and 'governance' reform, which reframe this question in politically powerful ways. These practices are increasingly important in development contexts, and beyond. Practitioners begin with the assumption that some sort of administration occurs in the development contexts in which they work. They then focus on how to convene a political community in which to embed-and potentially legitimate-that administration. They thereby reconfigure the question of delegation into one of autonomy-or managing the extent to and ways in which the administrative legal system self-produces. In doing so, I argue that contemporary rule of law practitioners wield constitutional power under the rubric of workaday administrative reform. At the same time, they efface their political accountability.

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Section: Contemporary Rule Of Law Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Rule of Law Reform: From Delegation to Autonomy

Desai

2020

Modern Law Review

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“…Applying labels of lawlessness to political spaces is a particularly powerful discursive tool, due to the esteemed place that the rule of law as an ideal of governance occupies in Euroamerican contexts. These political actors tend to view the rule of law as a normative good, and by extension as a “scale that measures ‘good’ states versus ‘bad’ states” (Massoud, 2016). As Sally Merry (1995) argues on the productive powers of law, settings like courts and legal debates “provide performances in which problems are named and solutions determined” (14).…”

Section: International Law and Violence In Frontier Territoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frontier justice: international law and ‘lawless’ spaces in the “War on Terror”

Nylen

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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How does the discourse of international law facilitate extraterritorial state violence? This paper synthesizes insights from International Relations, comparative politics, and legal studies in order to explore how the sovereign foundations of international law may render “frontier territories” exceptionally vulnerable to external military intervention. I argue that international law’s focus on sovereignty constitutes frontier territories as “ambiguous,” which leads to discursive conflicts over how to define these spaces, what is considered “legal” and “illegal” action within them, and who gets to define their status. All of this creates a conducive environment for powerful international governments to denigrate frontier territories as “lawless,” by rhetorically constructing them as exceptional legal spaces that do not deserve the same protections as areas ordered by sovereign ideals. To illuminate this empirically, I conduct a discourse analysis of 16 distinct legal documents from the Obama White House, including internal memorandums and public speeches on the legal standing of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

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“…If constitutive theorizing diminishes the authority of reified definitions and dusty desiderata, then it vitalizes the rule-of-law ideal for our time (see Massoud 2016). It does this by working out of a multiplicity of historical sites and intellectual legacies with which the rule of law is associated, but not so often described and theorized-peripheral settler colonies, postcolonies, and places with non-European rule-of-law traditions (e.g., Benton 2002, Manderson 2012, Ocko & Gilmartin 2009.…”

Section: The Difference Ethnography Might Makementioning

confidence: 99%

Rule-of-Law Ethnography

Cheesman

2018

Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.

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This review outlines an emerging agenda for ethnographic interpretation of the rule of law. From a survey of studies done on the rule of law in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the review identifies four general characteristics of this mode of inquiry, namely, that it is located, relational, and comparative and has extrinsic value. It offers three nonexhaustive reasons for interpreting the rule of law ethnographically, which are as a counterhegemonic practice, in response to counterintuitive observations, and as a means to do constitutive theorizing. Contending that ethnographic work on the rule of law involves some kind of stance toward both research subjects and object of inquiry, the review advocates for the exercise of passionate humility: a conviction about the rule of law tempered by willingness to be proven wrong through inquiries in critical proximity with socially and politically mediated facts. Rule-of-law ethnography's possibility lies in its attending to the relationship between what is claimed in the rule of law's name and what is realized, not to make the idea look foolish, but to show how it emerges and why it persists through struggle.

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Ideals and Practices in the Rule of Law: An Essay on Legal Politics

Cited by 31 publications

References 34 publications

The Politics of Rule of Law Reform: From Delegation to Autonomy

The Politics of Rule of Law Reform: From Delegation to Autonomy

Frontier justice: international law and ‘lawless’ spaces in the “War on Terror”

Rule-of-Law Ethnography

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