Law and the Order of Culture is an outstanding collection of essays that explores the cultural creation of legal meaning, addressing interpretive processes within the law as well as the social constitution of legal doctrine. Originally published in Representations, these essays are at the center of the "law and literature" movement which exemplifies a burgeoning literature in feminist jurisprudence, critical legal studies, and other work that has focused on law as evidence of cultural orderings. For this edition Robert Post has written a new introduction, proposing an analytic framework for this literature and discussion of the seven essays contained within the book. Ranging over a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, the contributors to the volume address such central issues as the construction of legal normativity, interpretive theory and practice in constitutional law, the function of legal metaphors, the interpretive foundations of the law/fact distinction, and the role of politics in contemporary critical legal studies. Law and the Order of Culture will attract a broad and eclectic readership across many disciplines. Law and the Order of Culture is an outstanding collection of essays that explores the cultural creation of legal meaning, addressing interpretive processes within the law as well as the social constitution of legal doctrine. Originally published in Representations, these essays are at the center of the "law and literature" movement which exemplifies a burgeoning literature in feminist jurisprudence, critical legal studies, and other work that has focused on law as evidence of cultural orderings. For this edition Robert Post has written a new introduction, proposing an analytic framework for this literature and discussion of the seven essays contained within the book. Ranging over a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, the contributors to the volume address such central issues as the construction of legal normativity, interpretive theory and practice in constitutional law, the function of legal metaphors, the interpretive foundations of the law/fact distinction, and the role of politics in contemporary critical legal studies. Law and the Order of Culture will attract a broad and eclectic readership across many disciplines.

DIVExplores the relationship between culture and law /div

What does it mean for courts and other legal institutions to be culturally sensitive? What are the institutional implications and consequences of such an aspiration? To what extent is legal discourse capable of accommodating multiple cultural narratives without losing its claim to normative specificity? And how are we to understand meetings of law and culture in the context of formal and informal legal processes, when demands are made to accommodate cultural difference? The encounter of law and culture is a polycentric relation, but these questions draw our attention to law and legal institutions as one site of encounter warranting further investigation, to map out the place of culture in the domains of law by relying on the insights of law, anthropology, politics, and philosophy. Culture in the Domains of Law seeks to examine and answer these questions, resulting in a richer outlook on both law and culture.

This book elaborates and defends the idea of law without the state. Animated by a vision of peaceful, voluntary cooperation as a social ideal and building on a careful account of non-aggression, it features a clear explanation of why the state is illegitimate, dangerous and unnecessary. It proposes an understanding of how law enforcement in a stateless society could be legitimate and what the optimal substance of law without the state might be, suggests ways in which a stateless legal order could foster the growth of a culture of freedom, and situates the project it elaborates in relation to leftist, anti-capitalist and socialist traditions.

Communities and Law looks at minorities, or nonruling communities, and their identity practices under state domination in the midst of globalization. It examines six sociopolitical dimensions of community--nationality, social stratification, gender, religion, ethnicity, and legal consciousness--within the communitarian context and through their respective legal cultures. Gad Barzilai addresses such questions as: What is a communal legal culture, and what is its relevance for relations between state and society in the midst of globalization? How do nonliberal communal legal cultures interact with transnational American-led liberalism? Is current liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights, litigation, and adjudication, sufficient to protect pluralism and multiculturalism? Why should democracies encourage the collective rights of nonruling communities and protect nonliberal communal cultures in principle and in practice? He looks at Arab-Palestinians, feminists, and ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel as examples of the types of communities discussed. Communities and Law contributes to our understanding of the severe tensions between democracies, on the one hand, and the challenge of their minority communities, on the other, and suggests a path toward resolving the resulting critical issues. Gad Barzilai is Professor of Political Science and Law and Co-Director of the Law, Politics and Society Program, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University.

A fresh theory on how individuals respond to inequalities occurring within their own communities. This original and insightful study draws on empirical research on the Santal people of Asia, examining power relations within social fields, and the state, to reveal a typology of power practices, and applies these to forced marriage in the West.