Beyond relativism: Where is political power in legal pluralism?

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 2008, Pages

  Barzilai, Gad ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 46849096989     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15653404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2202/1565-3404.1191     Document Type: Review

References (142)

1. For some examples, see GAD BARZILAI, COMMUNITIES AND LAW: POLITICS AND CULTURES OF LEGAL IDENTITIES (2003);
2. Talia Fisher, Nomos Without Narrative, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 473 (2008);
3. ANNE GRIFFITHS, IN THE SHADOW OF MARRIAGE: GENDER AND JUSTICE IN AN AFRICAN COMMUNITY (1997);
4. ASSAF LIKHOVSKI, LAW AND IDENTITY IN MANDATE PALESTINE (2006);
5. Menachem Mautner, From "Honor" to "Dignity": How Should a Liberal State Treat Non-Liberal Cultural Groups?, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 609 (2008);
6. MICHAEL W. MCCANN, RIGHTS AT WORK: PAY EQUITY REFORM AND THE POLITICS OF LEGAL MOBILIZATION (1994);
7. SALLY E. MERRY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER VIOLENCE: TRANSLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW INTO LOCAL JUSTICE (2006);
8. AYELET SHACHAR, MULTICULTURAL JURISDICTIONS: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS (200.1);
9. Ido Shahar, Practicing Islamic Law in a Legal Pluralistic Environment: The Changing Face of a Muslim Court in Present-Day Jerusalem (2006) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ben Gurion University) (on file with author);
10. RONEN SHAMIR, THE COLONIES OF LAW: COLONIALISM, ZIONISM, AND THE LAW IN EARLY PALESTINE (2000).
11. For various definitions of political power, see POWER (Steven Lukes ed., 1986).
12. For a similar criticism, see MINDIE LAZARUS-BLACK, LEGITIMATE ACTS AND ILLEGAL ENCOUNTERS: LAW AND SOCIETY IN ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 2 n.5 (1994);
13. June Starr & Jane F. Collier, Dialogues in Legal Anthropology, in HISTORY AND POWER IN THE STUDY OF LAW: NEW DIRECTIONS IN LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1 (June Starr & Jane F. Collier eds., 1989).
14. Christine Parker, The Pluralization of Regulation, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 349 (2008).
15. Sally E. Merry, Legal Pluralism, 22 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 869 (1988).
16. AMY GUTMANN, IDENTITY IN DEMOCRACY 1-15 (2003).
17. See, e.g., Woodman R. Gordon, Ideological Combat and Social Observation: Recent Debate About Legal Pluralism, 42 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 21 (1998);
18. Carol J. Greenhouse, Legal Pluralism and Cultural Difference -What is the Difference: A Response to Professor Woodman, 42 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 62 (1998).
19. THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE OF LAW (David Kairys ed., 1990);
20. AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM (William W. Fisher et al. eds., 1993).
21. Martin Shapiro, Public Law and Judicial Politics, in THE STATE OF THE DISCIPLINE II, at 356 (Ada W. Finifter ed., 1993).
22. See sources cited, supra note 7.
23. See, e.g., JEFFERY A. SEGAL & HAROLD J. SPAETH, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ATTTTUDINAL MODEL REVISITED (2002).
24. Gregory A. Caldeira & James L. Gibson, The Legitimacy of the Court of Justice in the European Union: Models of Institutional Support, 89 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 356 (1995);
25. LEE EPSTEIN & JOSEPH H. KOBYLKA, THE SUPREME COURT AND LEGAL CHANGE (1992);
26. JAMES L. GIBSON, OVERCOMING APARTHEID: CAN TRUTH RECONCILE A DIVIDED NATION? (2004).
27. CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, FEMINISM UNMODIFIED: DISCOURSES ON LIFE AND LAW (1987);
28. CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, TOWARDS A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE (1989);
29. JUDITH BUTLER, GENDER TROUBLE (1990);
30. JOEL MIGDAL, STATE IN SOCIETY: STUDYING HOW STATES AND SOCIETIES TRANSFORM AND CONSTITUTE ONE ANOTHER (2001).
31. WILL KYMLICKA, MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP: A LIBERAL THEORY OF MINORITY RIGHTS (1995);
32. Will Kymlicka, American Multiculturalism in the International Arena, DISSENT, Fall 1998, at 73;
33. JOSEPH H. CARENS, CULTURE, CITIZENSHIP, AND COMMUNITY 140-60 (2000).
34. Jes Bjarup, The Philosophy of Scandinavian Legal Realism, 18 RATIO JURIS 1 (2005);
35. Leora Batnitsky, From Politics to Law: Modern Jewish Thought and the Invention of Jewish Law (2007) (paper presented at the University of Washington, on file with author).
36. Zahraa Mahdi, Characteristic Features of Islamic Law: Perceptions and Misconceptions, 15 ARAB L.Q. 168 (2000).
37. Legal pluralism has mainly referred to European scholars who have devoted their research to countries outside Europe, African and Asian alike. See, e.g., Franz Benda-Beckmann & Han F. Vermeulen, Adat Law and Legal Anthropology, 46 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 103 (2001).
38. KONRAD ZWEIGERT & HEIN KOTZ, INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE LAW 286-302 (1998).
39. H.L.A. HART, THE CONCEPT OF LAW 62, 165, 178 (1961);
40. see also Jules L. Coleman & Brian Leiter, Legal Positivism, in A COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY OF LAW AND LEGAL THEORY 241 (Dennis Patterson ed., 1996).
41. John Griffiths, The Social Working of Legal Rules, 48 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 1 (2003);
42. Morton J. Horwitz, 'Why is Anglo-American Jurisprudence Unhistorical?; 17 O.J.L.S. 551 (1997).
43. HART, supra note 19;
44. Horwitz, supra note 20;
45. see also P.M.S. Hacker, Hart's Philosophy of Law, in P.M.S. HACKER & J. RAZ, LAW, MORALITY, AND SOCIETY: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF H.L.A. HART 1 (1997).
46. Ulrike Schmid, Legal Pluralism as a Source of Conflict in Multi-Ethnic Societies - The Case of Ghana, 46 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 1 (2001).
47. In this Article I am. not analyzing more recent developments in legal positivism that have searched for new avenues to construct positivism. This topic is outside the scope of this Article. See, e.g., ANDREI MARMOR, POSITIVIST LAW AND OBJECTIVE VALUES (2001).
48. Nidhi Gupta, Women's Human Rights and the Practice of Dowry in India: Adapting a Global Discourse to Local Demands, 48 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 85 (2003);
49. Benda-Beckmann & Vermeulen, supra note 17;
50. Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, Nike's Law: The Anti-Sweatshop Movement, Transnational Corporations, and the Struggle Over International Labor Rights in the Americas, in LAW AND GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW: TOWARDS A COSMOPOLITAN LEGALITY 64 (Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito & Boaventura Santos eds., 2005);
51. Ronen Shamir, The Age of Responsibilization: On Market Embedded Morality, 37 ECON. & SOC'Y 1 (2008);
52. Ronen Shamir, Corporate Social Responsibility: Towards a New Market-Embedded Morality?, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 371 (2008);
53. Yishai Blank, Localism in the New Global Legal Order, 47 HARV. INT'L L.J. 263 (2006);
54. Yishai Blank, The City and the World, 44 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 868 (2006).
55. Benda-Beckmann & Vermeulen, supra note 17.
56. For more elaborated, definitions, see BARZILAI, supra note 1.
57. Id.;
58. SHACHAR, supra note 1;
59. Jeff Spinner-Halev, Liberalism and Religion: Against Congruence, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 553 (2008);
60. Ido Shahar, State, Society and the Relations Between Them: Implications for the Study of Legal Pluralism, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 417 (2008);
61. FOLK LAW (Alison Dundes Rentlen & Alan Dundes eds., 1994).
62. Elsewhere I have explained why the dichotomy of "individual" vs. "community" may be very problematic, and that a critical communitarian perspective does encourage symbiotic relationships between states, individuals, and communities. See BARZILAI, supra note 1;
63. and also, in reference to the right to exit, Gad Barzilai, The Redemptive Principle of Particularistic Obligations: A Legal Political Inquiry, 14 RESPONSIVE COMMUNITY 133 (2004). For a similar approach, see Mautner, supra note 1.
64. BARZILAI, supra note 1;
65. PATRICIA EWICK & SUSAN SILBEY, THE COMMON PLACE OF LAW: STORIES FROM EVERYDAY LIFE (1998).
66. THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE OF LAW, supra note 8;
67. MORTON J. HORWITZ, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1870-1960: THE CRISIS OF LEGAL ORTHODOXY (1992);
68. BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA SANTOS, TOWARDS A NEW COMMON SENSE: LAW, SCIENCE, AND POLITICS IN PARADIGMATIC TRANSITION (1995).
69. MARY ANN GLENDON, RIGHTS TALK: THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE (1991);
70. STUART SCHEINGOLD, THE POLITICS OF RIGHTS: LAWYERS, PUBLIC POLICY, AND POLITICAL CHANGE (2004).
71. While some scholars distinguish between various types of groups, as if identity groups are distinct from cultural groups, I have explicated and conceptualized why law is being shaped through groups that have developed collective practices, whether based on "identity" or based on "culture." Accordingly, I have referred to identity groups as a generic term that points to any group that has generated, some collective practices towards or in law. See BARZILAI, supra note 1.
72. BARZILAI, supra note 1;
73. Kimberle Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, in CRITICAL RACE THEORY 357 (Kimberle Crenshaw et al. eds., 1995);
74. MENACHEM MAUTNER, THE FALL OF FORMALISM AND THE RISE OF VALUES IN ISRAELI LAW (1993) (Hebrew);
75. CHARLES R. EPP, THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION (1998);
76. MCCANN, supra note 1;
77. WALDEN BELLO, DEGLOBALIZATION: IDEAS FOR A NEW WORLD ECONOMY (2002).
78. FOLK LAW, supra note 27.
79. BARZILAI, supra note 1;
80. Karine Barzilai-Nahon & Gad Barzilai, Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism, 21 INFO. SOC'Y 25 (2005).
81. WILLIAM A SCHABAS, THE UN I NTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNALS: THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, RWANDA AND SIERRA LEONE (2006);
82. NANCY A. COMBS, GUILTY PLEAS IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW: CONSTRUCTING A RESTORATIVE JUSTICE APPROACH (2007).
83. RACHEL CHICOWSKI, THE EUROPEAN COURT, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION (2007).
84. My reflections on human rights activities in Russia are based on a meeting with Russian human rights activists at the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, in May 2007.
85. See also PAMELA A. JORDAN, DEFENDING RIGHTS IN RUSSIA: LAWYERS, THE STATE, AND LEGAL REFORM IN THE POST-SOVIET AREA (2005);
86. for a good, study on Mexico, see Amanda Cats-Baril, Legal Mobilization in Oaxaca: Towards Justice in Multicultural Societies (2007) (unpublished paper, on file with author); regarding Israel, see Hassan Jabareen, Toward a Critical Palestinian Minority Approach: Citizenship, Nationalism and Feminisim in Israeli Law, 9 PLILM 53 (2000) (Hebrew).
87. TALAL ASAD, GENEALOGIES OF RELIGION: DISCIPLINE AND REASONS OF POWER IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM (1993);
88. MERRY, supra note 1;
89. AUSTIN SARAT & THOMAS R. KEARNS, LAW IN EVERYDAY LIFE (1993);
90. LIKHOVSKI, supra note 1;
91. THE HISTORY OF LAW IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY: ISRAEL 1917-1967 (Ron Harris et al. eds., 2002).
92. MCCANN, supra note 1;
93. CHARLES R. EPP, THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION (1998);
94. Gad Barzilai, The Evasive Facets of Law: Litigation as Collective Action, ADALAH'S NEWSL, Feb. 2005, http://www.adalah.org/- newsletter/eng/feb05/ar2.pdf;
95. RAN HIRSCHL, TOWARDS JURISTOCRACY: THE ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEW CONSTITUTIONALISM (2004).
96. RIGHTS AND THE COMMON GOOD: THE COMMUNITARIAN PERSPECTIVE (Amitai Etzioni ed., 1995);
97. PHILIP SELZNICK, THE MORAL COMMONWEALTH: SOCIAL THEORY AND THE PROMISE OF COMMUNITY (1992);
98. CHARLES TAYLOR, SOURCES OF THE SELF: THE MAKING OF MODERN IDENTITY (1989).
99. Crenshaw, supra note 33. The term, "community" is preferred over "group" since the latter notion veils the fact that when people are bonded through collective identities they are significantly embedded in these identities and construct a specific collective culture. The term "community" also sharpens the differences between interest groups, which function for the promotion of specific interests of their members without necessarily being bonded by identities, and communities that are constructed by joint and bounded identities.
100. SHACHAR, supra note 1;
101. Barzilai, supra note 28.
102. LAURA NADER, HARMONY IDEOLOGY: JUSTICE AND CONTROL IN A ZAPOTEC MOUNTAIN VILLAGE (1990);
103. ANGELINA S. GODOY, POPULAR INJUSTICE: VIOLENCE, COMMUNITY, AND LAW IN LATIN AMERICA (2006).
104. JACOB HERBERT ET AL., COURTS, LAW AND POLITICS (1996).
105. R. v. Bow St. Metro. Stipendiary Magistrate, ex parte Pinochet Ugarte, [2000] 1 A.C. 147 (H.L.) (appeal taken from Eng.).
106. See also ROHT-ARRIAZA NAOMI, THE PINOCHET EFFECT: TRANSNATIONAL JUSTICE IN THE AGE OF HUMAN RIGHTS (2005).
107. See, e.g., GLENDON, supra note 31.
108. Gad Barzilai & Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Rights and Governance of Power Resources: Why Do Non-Consociational Deeply Divided Societies Survive? (2008) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author);
109. Yuksel Sezgin, Legal Pluralism, in India, Israel and Egypt (2007) (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington) (on file with author).
110. Alberto Spektorowski, Multiculturalism of the Right: "Europe of the People" (Aug. 2007) (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago).
111. JAPANESE MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES (D.R. Basu & V. Miroshnik eds., 2007);
112. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE LESSONS FROM TRANSITION ECONOMIC REFORMS (Merritt B. Fox & Michael A. Heller eds., 2006);
113. ANOTHER PRODUCTION IS POSSIBLE: BEYOND THE CAPITALIST CANON (Boaventura D. Santos ed., 2006);
114. Shamir, supra note 24.
115. NEIL NUGENT, THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (2002).
116. Donald C. Hellmann, A Decade After the Crisis: Asian Regionalism and International. Architecture in a Globalized World (Feb. 2007) (paper presented at the Thammasat-Berkeley International Symposium, Bangkok, Thailand).
117. See, e.g., AKBAR AHMED, JOURNEY TO ISLAM: THE CRISIS OF GLOBALIZATION (2007).
118. See, e.g., DANIEL D. DREZNER, ALL POLITICS IS GLOBAL: EXPLAINING INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY REGIMES (2007).
119. See, e.g., Nathan J. Brown & Clark B. Lombardi, The Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt: On Islamic Law, Veiling and Civil Rights, 21 AM. U. INT'L L. REV. 437 (2006);
120. Saadia Pekkanen, Bilateralism, Multilateralism, or Regionalism? Japan's Trade Forum Choices, 5 J. EAST ASIAN STUD. 27 (2005);
121. Barzilai-Nahon & Barzilai, supra note 35;
122. For privatization in China, see, for example, the Privatization Dataset of the World Bank: The World Bank Group, Private Participation in Infrastructure Database, http://rru.worldbank.org/Privatization/Resul.ts.aspx?countryid=42 (last visited Nov. 1, 2007);
123. Noel J. Coulson, Law and Religion in Contemporary Islam, 29 HASTINGS L.J. 1447 (1978).
124. See, for example, the sources by Kymlicka cited in supra note 14;
125. and ERIC J. MITNICK, RIGHTS, GROUPS, AND SELF INVENTION (2006).
126. MICHAEL B. BARRATT, FAIR TRADE: REFORM AND REALITIES IN THE INTERNATIONAL TRADING SYSTEMS (2003);
127. Jen Caldwell, Development, Impact and Future of the Fair Trade Movement: An Analysis of the Contemporary Fair Trade Movement and the Fair Trade Towns Initiative (2007) (unpublished honor thesis, University of Washington) (on file with author).
128. Based on discussions with Russian human rights activists at the University of Washington in May 2007.
129. On the complexities of legal cultures in various places, see COMPARING LEGAL CULTURES (David Nelken ed., 1997).
130. Crenshaw, supra note 33.
131. Gupta, supra note 24;
132. Oomen Barbara, Group Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Case of the Traditional Leaders, 44 J. LEGAL PLURALISM & UNOFFICIAL L. 73 (1999).
133. See, e.g., Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Law, Politics, and Violence against Women: The Case-Study of Palestinian-Israelis, 21 LAW& POL'Y 189 (1999).
134. For more details, see BARZILAI, supra note 1, at 177-78.
135. Bryant Garth & Joyce Sterling, From Legal Realism to Law and Society, 32 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 409 (1998);
136. LIKHOVSKI, supra note 1;
137. MERRY, supra note 1;
138. Merry, supra note 5;
139. SHAMR, supra note 1.
140. MICHEL FOUCAULT, POWER/KNOWLEDGE: SELECTED INTERVIEWS AND OTHER WRITINGS 1972-1977 (Gordon Colin ed., 1980).
141. See also Shachar, supra note 27.
142. Barzilai & Harel-Shalev, supra note 48.