Luhmann On Law And Politics: Critical Appraisals And Applications (Oñati International Series In Law And Society)

Description

Perhaps more than any other social theorist in recent history, Niklas Luhmann’s work has aroused extreme, and often antagonistic, responses. It has generated controversies about its political implications, its resolute anti-humanism and its ambitious critique of more established definitions of society, social theory and sociology. Now, however, a steadily growing number of scholars working in many different disciplines have begun to use aspects of Luhmann’s sociology as an important methodological stimulus and as a theoretical framework for reorientating their studies. This collection of essays includes critical and reconstructive contributions by a number of distinguished social theorists, political theorists, legal scholars and empirical sociologists. Together, they provide evidence of Luhmann’s extensive and diverse relevance to the issues facing contemporary society, and, at the same time, they enhance our understanding of the challenges posed by his theoretical paradigm to more traditional conceptions of social theory.

Editors Biography

Michael King is Emeritus Professor at the School of Law, University or Reading.

Rosemary Hunter FacSS is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Founding Head of Law at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK. She is a feminist socio-legal scholar with particular interests in family law and family justice processes, judging and the judiciary, and access to justice. She has published widely on these topics in both Australia (where she began her academic career) and the UK. With Anne Barlow, she was a member of the ESRC-funded Mapping Paths to Family Justice project, which resulted in their prize-winning book, Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neoliberal Times (Barlow, Hunter, Smithson and Ewing, 2017). Rosemary has been the Academic Member of the Family Justice Council since 2016 and leads the Council’s Domestic Abuse Working Group. She is also a member of the Private Law Working Group and the Ministry of Justice’s Expert Panel on Harm in the Family Courts. She is a former Chair of the SLSA and a former Council member of JUSTICE.

Chris Thornhill is Professor of Law at the University of Manchester.

David Nelken is Professor of Comparative and Transnational Law and past Vice-Dean for Research at King’s College London, UK. Widely published in sociology of law and in criminology, he has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the International Sociological Association, and the (USA) Law and Society Association. He has twice been a Trustee of the LSA and Vice-President of the RSCL.