critical commentary/summary paper
Order Description
Dear writer,
This is an assignment for last year unit for Law and Social Theory.
the assignment is 40 % of my total mark so it’s really important that you follow the instructions.
This Assignment requires you READING WEEK 4 AND 5 AND GIVE CRITICAL/SUMMARY FOR 1 QUESTION FROM EACH READINGS.
ESSAY SHOULD BE DIVIDED INTO 2 SECTIONS EACH IS 550 WORDS.
YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO CHOOSE FROM LIST OF QUESTIONS FOR EACH READINGS, AGAIN critical commentary/summary on TWO of the topics (c. 550 words each)
Important :
This will be marked on the following, make sure you include : capacity to read the course materials and references critically, and to identify the key issues emerging from such a critical analysis. . Accordingly, you will be required to produce a critical commentary/summary on TWO of the topics
critical commentary/summary on TWO of the topics (c. 550 words each) weeks 4-5. This will entail selecting and answering two ‘discussions questions’ (from different weeks) from topics covered in weeks 4-5. The workbook.
WEEK 4 QUESTIONS, CHOOSE ONE:
• What does Luhmann mean by approaching law as an ‘autopoietic system’?
• Explain the way in which Luhmann sees the legal system as both ‘operationally
closed’ and ‘cognitively open’. Can you think of counter- examples, such as when
the legal system is not operationally closed at all?
• In his systems-theoretical approach to society as a whole, do you think that
Luhmann accords a special place to law, and how would you explain what is
distinctive about it?
• How does ‘structural coupling’ work, what is the relationship between law and
politics, law and the economy, law and civil society?
• Do you think Luhmann’s approach is too abstract? What place does it give to
human action?
ADDITIONAL READINGS THAN THE MAIN ONE ATTACHED TO HELP YOU:
Supplementary Reading
Mikael R. Madsen & Yves Dezalay, ‘The power of the legal field’, B&T Chapter 10 or
Mikael R. Madsen & Yves Dezalay, ‘Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of law: From the genesis of the state to the globalization of law’, L&ST Chapter 6.
……………………………………………………………….
WEEK 5 QUESTIONS CHOOSE ONE
• What is Bourdieu referring to when he speaks of ‘fields’?
• How would you explain what the ‘field of law’ is, and how does it relate to other
social fields?
• What does the concept of ‘legal habitus’ refer to?
• “… the law has its own complex, specific, and often antagonistic relation to the
exercise of power” (Terdiman, p. 808). Can you think of any examples?
• Take one recent major legal development and explain how it would be
understood differently if approached in terms of Bourdieu’s strategic analysis.
ADDITIONAL READINGS THAN THE MAIN ONE ATTACHED TO HELP YOU:
Neil Andrews, ‘The inherited ‘peculiarities of the English’: exploring the culture of the common law statements of directors’ duties with Luhmann and Bourdieu’ in M. Andenas and D. Sugarman (eds), Developments in European Company Law: Volume 3/1999 Directors’ Conflicts of Interest: Legal, Socio-Legal and Economic Analyses (London: Kluwer, 2000) 163.
Craig Calhoun, ‘Social Theory and the Law Systems-Theory, Normative Justification, and Postmodernism’ (1989) 83 (1-2) Northwestern University Law Review 398.
Rosemary J. Coombe, ‘Room for Manoeuver: Toward a Theory of Practice in Critical Legal Studies’ (1989) 14 (1) Law & Social Inquiry 69.
Yves Dezalay and Garth, Bryant, ‘Merchants of law as moral entrepreneurs: constructing international justice from competition for transnational business disputes’ (1995) 29 (1) Law & Society Review 27.
—, Dealing in Virtue: International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of a Transnational Legal Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
— (eds) Global Prescriptions: The Production, Exportation, and Importation of a New Legal Orthodoxy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).