Theatre of the Rule of Law. Transnational Legal Intervention in Theory and (Jörg Menzel)

Humphreys, Stephen

doi:10.5771/0506-7286-2012-3-363

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…While these can be appealing goals, 93 they nevertheless represent a rather 'impoverished vision of the rule of law', as Humphreys puts it in his monumental study of this topic. 94 Humphreys notices that, while criminal justice is a lifelong rule of law concern, 'the focus has generally been on the rights of the accused, a theme that fits easily into a favorite rule of law genealogy from Magna Carta through habeas corpus'. The emphasis on a more coercive state leads, at best, to 'a very different, if still related animal to the rule of law described above …: its center of gravity has shifted dramatically'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and Lawyers in Brazil's Illiberal Turn (2014–2018)

Silva

2020

Journal of Law and Society

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Law and lawyers tend to be seen as either preferential victims of or key counterforces to rising illiberalism. Brazil offers a good testbed for these claims. Brazilian democracy has deteriorated considerably, as epitomized by the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. Yet, since 2014, law and lawyers have become ever more central to Brazil's field of state power. As the anti‐corruption initiative Car Wash (Lava Jato) gained momentum, Brazilian judges and prosecutors were celebrated, locally and globally, as champions of transparency, accountability, and ‘the rule of law’. Following a closer look at Car Wash, this article questions such idealization of law and lawyers. Drawing on research on press interviews and statements by Car Wash legal officers, I find that, throughout the case, they produced a ‘political grammar’ that is closer to illiberalism than many would predict. Based on recent developments in the sociology of fields, I argue that the production of these grammars yields societal effects that deserve scholarly and civic attention.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and Lawyers in Brazil's Illiberal Turn (2014–2018)

Silva

2020

Journal of Law and Society

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“…The superiority, moral and political, of the legalized condition over the pre‐legal state of affairs is taken as a given rather than asked as a question or discovered as a finding. This follows in the tradition of Max Weber for whom (in Stephen Humphreys’ words) ‘fidelity to law and legal process … is the guarantor of both an efficient bureaucracy and of the smooth functioning of a market economy’ (Humphreys, , p. 15).…”

Section: Enchanted and Disenchantedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enchanted and Disenchanted International Law

Hurd¹

2015

Global Policy

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Scholars and activists commonly see international law in a privileged normative and political position in world politics, where international legal institutions are assumed to advance important goals such as international stability, human justice and even global order as a whole. I explore this attitude toward international law, which I call an ‘enchanted’ view, and contrast it to the ‘disenchanted’ alternative. Where the enchanted attitude presumes the normative valence and political wisdom of following international law, the disenchanted approach treats these as open questions for inquiry and discussion. The disenchanted approach is more empirically minded, and more politically open, than the enchanted, and leads to a distinct research program on legalization in international affairs – one that is attentive to the politics of law, the connections between law and power, the ambiguity that exists between legality and policy wisdom.

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“…4 As a result, many critiques of the rule of law are founded on a story of fundamental deficiency that inevitably results from-and is easy to find in a field structured around-a concept that eludes definitional consensus. The primary modality of such critiques is "taking into account": They require us to (a) generate more precise definitions of the rule of law by taking into account insights from conceptual, analytical/discursive, and practical thinking (respective examples can be found in Raz 1977, Humphreys 2010, and Kratochwil 2014; (b) consult other genres of literature that might tell us more about the rule of law (Comaroff & Comaroff 2004, Krygier 2012; and (c) engage with stories about the structures and individual actors who "build" or "reform" it in particular contexts (Desai & Woolcock 2015, Golub 2003, Isser 2011. Efforts to coalesce and move forward, then, are structurally impeded by a combination of repeated first-order questioning and an inadequate consensus on conceptual foundations.…”

Section: The Critical Canonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Justice Reform: Lessons from the World Bank and Beyond

Desai

Woolcock

2015

Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.

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Rule of law orthodoxy-legal transplants from high-to low-income countries-has endured despite persistent critiques. A key reason for this, we argue, is the absence of positive theories of praxis that can instantiate essentially contested concepts such as rule of law. We discuss the emergence of one nascent alternative, the World Bank's Justice for the Poor program, locating it within broader turns to experimental approaches to development. In doing so, we argue that rule of law reform must be understood in the context of the politics of the relationship between development experts and the domestic political forums in and through which rules systems emerge. As such, a primary task of external agencies is to help forge and sustain such forums, to recognize the deep imbrication between the process norms of these forums and the nature of the rule of law being produced, and to ensure that the empirical foundations on which ensuing deliberations rest are both sound and accessible. We conclude with an exploration of the challenges of this approach, from methodological challenges in building an empirical foundation to political accountability concerns with respect to rule of law reformers themselves. 8.1

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Theatre of the Rule of Law. Transnational Legal Intervention in Theory and (Jörg Menzel)

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and Lawyers in Brazil's Illiberal Turn (2014–2018)

From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and Lawyers in Brazil's Illiberal Turn (2014–2018)

Enchanted and Disenchanted International Law

Experimental Justice Reform: Lessons from the World Bank and Beyond

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