This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. The volume is international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological in approach and brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions. The book provides timely new insights and a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form.

In considering diffusion from a global perspective, this book provides timely new insights into its application in a variety of fields and at many levels of both legal and non-legal orderings. This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion, in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. These examples, taken together, provide a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form. This international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological volume brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions, and advances the conversation about legal and normative diffusion across the academy. It represents a robust challenge to many preconceived ideas about legal movement and, as such, will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of Law, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Legal Education and comparative method.

This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. The volume is international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological in approach and brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions. The book provides timely new insights and a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form.

Do countries adopt legal rules due to independent, top-down processes, or, do laws spread among nations in a manner that resembles the diffusion of new products and innovations in a social network? We empirically examine this question by employing an influential mathematical model based on sociological diffusion theory and frequently used for analyzing the diffusion of innovations (the Bass model). Our findings indicate that more often than not, the temporal diffusion of legal rules displays a good fit to the Bass model, and suggest that this model can provide new insights in studying the diffusion of laws. Particularly, applying the Bass model to legal diffusion allows quantifying the influence that countries and states exert on each other in the adoption of specific rules, provides a metric for comparing diffusion processes across different legal branches, allows to tentatively predict the ongoing spread of specific rules, and sheds light on several debates in the areas of comparative, corporate, and international law.

This book examines Taiwan’s judicial reform process, which began three years after the 1996 transition to democracy, in 1999, when Taiwanese legal and political leaders began discussing how to reform Taiwan’s judicial system to meet the needs of the new social and political conditions. Covering different areas of the law in a comprehensive way, the book considers, for each legal area, problems related to rights and democracy in that field, the debates over reform, how foreign systems inspired reform proposals, the political process of change, and the substantive legal changes that ultimately emerged. The book also sets Taiwan’s legal reforms in their historical and comparative context, and discusses how the reform process continues to evolve.

In considering diffusion from a global perspective, this book provides timely new insights into its application in a variety of fields and at many levels of both legal and non-legal orderings. This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion, in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. These examples, taken together, provide a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form. This international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological volume brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions, and advances the conversation about legal and normative diffusion across the academy. It represents a robust challenge to many preconceived ideas about legal movement and, as such, will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of Law, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Legal Education and comparative method.