Law Commons^™

Liberalism And Postliberalism In Bolivarian Venezuela, Tony Petros Spanakos

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In the last half-decade, the “rise of the left” in Latin America has been studied extensively by many scholars. Whether framed as one, two, or many lefts, its various party leaders have been vocal in opposition to neoliberalism, although the orientation of their policies and governments toward neoliberalism has been mixed (Panizza 2009). The most influential and visible case of an anti-neoliberal government is that of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías.

The five books reviewed here, drawing on research on Venezuela, share a common scholarly interest in liberalism, pluralism, and account- ability, although some defend liberalism (Brewer-Carías, Corrales and Penfold), …

The Place Of Law In Ivan Illich's Vision Of Social Transformation, Bruce K. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses Ivan Illich’s direction for social reform that led to his book, "Tools for Conviviality", where Illich targeted development, technology, and the exploitation of nature. Illich identified three key cultural institutions that needed to be reclaimed in order to bring about an inversion of industrial society: science, language, and law. This Article focuses on the rule of law and its central institutional invention—formal adjudication.

The Author suggests that Illich’s idealism can still be found in the law reform litigation effort and identifies the diminished stature of the ideal of disinterested adjudication as a significant threat to Illich’s hopes …

The Constitution Of Cádiz In Florida, M C. Mirow

Faculty Publications

The article explores the vibrant constitutional community that existed in St. Augustine and the province of East Florida in the final decade of Spanish control of the area. Based on relatively unexplored primary sources, it reveals a great deal of unknown information about the importance of the Constitution in Florida immediately before the territory was transferred to the United States. The article provides full description of the Constitution's promulgation in 1812 and a second promulgation of the Constitution in 1820 (something unknown in the general literature). It also addresses the construction of the St. Augustine monument to the Constitution erected …

Race As A Legal Concept, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

Race is a legal concept, and like all legal concepts, it is a matrix of rules. Although the legal conception of race has shifted over time, up from slavery and to the present, one element in the matrix has remained the same: the background rules of race have always taken a view of racial identity as a natural aspect of human biology. To be sure, characterizations of the rule have oftentimes kept pace with developments in race science, and the original invention of race as a rationale for the subordination of certain human populations is now a rationale with little …

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

This review of The Supportive State: Families, Government and America’s Political Ideals highlights Maxine Eichner’s important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The review then considers some implications of Eichner’s proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that The Supportive State is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

The Market As A Legal Concept, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

In the wake of the recent financial crisis of 2008, and in the run-up to what some are calling a perfect fiscal storm, there is no shortage of commentary on the need for fundamental market reform. Though there are certainly disagreements about where the real problems are and what to do, almost all the commentary remains wedded to an old and entirely false image of “free competition.” Of course, there is hardly consensus about whether markets require the heavy hand of regulative control, or are better left to regulate themselves, but a belief in the distinction between these two images …