The Rule of Law: An Unqualified Human Good?

Horwitz, Morton J.; Hay, Douglas; Linebaugh, Peter; Rule, John; Thompson, Edward P.; Winslow, C.-E. A.

doi:10.2307/795801

Cited by 62 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Les réflexions de Thompson ont donné lieu en leur temps à de nombreuses controverses dans les milieux marxistes (Anderson, 1980 : 197-207) et chez les juristes critiques (Horwitz, 1977). Le contraste est frappant si l'on considère l'accueil qui fut réservé aux thèses de Lefort, un …”

Section: Les Figures Du Droit Chez Claude Lefortunclassified

Les deux corps du droit. La nature et le rôle du droit dans la pensée de Claude Lefort1

Simard

2015

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On rend souvent hommage à Claude Lefort pour avoir avancé une compréhension originale de la démocratie, qui met en son centre une réflexion sur le droit en rupture avec l’individualisme libéral et l’anti-juridisme marxiste. Même si cette réflexion a connu un certain écho dans les années 1980, elle a été largement ignorée par les efforts subséquents pour renouveler la théorie politique sur la base d’une relation « co-originaire » (Habermas) entre démocratie et droits fondamentaux. Comme cet article cherche à le montrer, ce fait tient pour une part à la singularité du contexte politico-intellectuel français, mais aussi et surtout à une difficulté fondamentale quant à la manière d’approcher l’objet « droit ». La réflexion de Lefort s’efforce en effet de combiner deux compréhensions du droit (comme médium et comme institution) qui ne sont pas parfaitement congruentes, même si elles informent toutes deux sa conception de la démocratie. Il en résulte un va-et-vient constant entre un registre agonistique, inspiré par l’oeuvre de Machiavel, et un registre « libéral », insistant sur le caractère formel et « désincorporé » du droit. C’est sur ce dernier point que les propos de Lefort conservent quelque chose d’ambigu et d’inachevé.Political theorists often attribute to Claude Lefort a unique concept of democracy, relying on a re-interpretation of law that rejects both liberal individualism and Marxism’s anti-legalism. Although this reflection has had an audience in the 1980s, it was largely ignored by subsequent efforts to expose the “co-originarity” (Habermas) of democratic politics and fundamental rights. As this article will argue, this was partly due to the peculiar political and intellectual context then prevailing in France, but also and above all to an intrinsic difficulty in the way Lefort approaches the very nature of “law.” He tries to combine two perspectives on law (law as a medium and law as institution) that are not wholly congruent, although both imbue his concept of democracy. As a result, his ideas on law are always wavering between an agonistic register, inspired by Machiavellian politics, and a “liberal” register, focusing on law’s formalism and “disincorporatedness.” It is precisely on this point that Lefort’s thought seems somewhat incomplete and ambiguous

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Section: Les Figures Du Droit Chez Claude Lefortunclassified

Les deux corps du droit. La nature et le rôle du droit dans la pensée de Claude Lefort1

Simard

2015

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“…More or less at the same time as the American liberal identified the rule of law as naked instrumentalism, at the mercy of interests, the English Marxist took flight to a rather romantic formalism. (For critiques of Thompson's formalism and romanticism, see Merritt 1980, Anderson 1980; see also Horwitz 1977. For a historical critique of the implications of Thompson's general representation of eighteenth-century law and alternative formulations, see Tomlins 1995.…”

Section: Relative Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

How Autonomous Is Law?

Tomlins

2007

Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.

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Socio-legal scholars forever debate whether law is the product of internally constructed rules, procedures, and rationales or an effect of external social forces and interests. Traditionally, the debate pitted formalists who defended law's actual autonomy against instrumentalists who claimed law was a creature of exogenous circumstance. The debate was transformed in the later twentieth century, first by fundamental refinements in Marxist theory that produced structuralist accounts of law's relative autonomy, then by poststructural innovations in critical theory which held that all discourses (including law) were epistemically autonomous. Parallel formulations claimed not only that law was autonomous but also that law was in fact constitutive of the very social circumstances once held to determine its development. This article reviews the highlights of the debate while adopting a perspective outside it. It treats the autonomy question as relational-if law is autonomous it must still be autonomous in relation to something-and asks in relation to what? All sides in the debate assume the answer is society, so the article asks how the social became law's relational other and what other relationalities might be brought into play.

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“…62 Horwitz does not dispute the fact that the law constrains power but, he insists, 'it also prevents power's benevolent exercise'. The law creates a formal equality that 'promotes substantive inequality' by fostering 'a consciousness that radically separates law from politics, means from ends, processes from outcomes'.…”

Section: Morton Horwitz On Thompson's 'Conservatism'mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘An Unqualified Human Good’: E.P. Thompson and the Rule of Law

Cole¹

2001

Journal of Law and Society

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The late E.P. Thompson described himself as ‘a historian in the Marxist tradition’ But when he embraced the Rule of Law (in Whigs and Hunters, many of his colleagues on the left ostracized him as an apostate. This essay argues that Thompson's critics have largely misunderstood what he meant by the Rule of Law. His was a minimal and historical conception, which merely sought to distinguish states whose rulers had unfettered discretion from states whose rulers were constrained by legal rules, whatever their source and contents. Also, in contrast to other radical theorists, Thompson recognized that law would be a necessary institution in any complex society, no matter what its economic basis, to mediate social relations. The essay concludes with some thoughts about the relevancy of Thompson's conception of the Rule of Law for ongoing efforts to revitalize a more `radical liberalism'.

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The Rule of Law: An Unqualified Human Good?

Cited by 62 publications

References 0 publications

Les deux corps du droit. La nature et le rôle du droit dans la pensée de Claude Lefort1

Les deux corps du droit. La nature et le rôle du droit dans la pensée de Claude Lefort1

How Autonomous Is Law?

‘An Unqualified Human Good’: E.P. Thompson and the Rule of Law

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