Za darmo

ebook Law, Space and The Political: an East-West Perspective

Wydawca: Uniwersytet Jana Długosza w Częstochowie

Rok wydania: 2019

Introduction
The development of critical legal thinking in Central and Eastern Europe is
a relatively recent phenomenon. As Adam Sulikowski – the most prominent
critical legal scholar of the region – has rightly pointed out, despite the fact
that Polish legal theorists and dogmaticians criticised capitalist law during
the period of actually existing socialism, once the system changed they simply
underwent a so-called ‘affirmative amnesia’, and embraced the new,
capitalist law without any reservations. The period after 1989 was marked
by an unprecedented influx of legal transfers from the West, especially in
the area of public law where entire building blocks of constitutionalism were
simply transplanted, without much reflection as to how they would function
in their new environment. Only later on problems began to appear, indicating
that legal institutions – contrary to Alan Watson’s famous claim – cannot just
be moved around, without sufficient regard for the historical, social, political
and even cultural context. Traditions, sometimes authoritarian, prove to be
stronger than enthusiastic reformers, amongst them, lawyers would have imagined
at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s when history was allegedly coming
to an end and the demoliberal hegemony was to take over forever.
Today, in hindsight, almost three decades after the transformation,
we are only gradually learning how to take a step back and look at the
legal developments from a certain distance. This book is an attempt at
doing this. It brings together authors from various countries, not only of
Central and Eastern Europe, but also from other regions. The common
theme around which the papers revolve, is the relationship between law,
space and the political. Whereas law and space do not require a definition
(even if law is a disputed concept), the notion of the political should, perhaps,
be introduced. Following Chantal Mouffe (who, in turn, drew on
Carl Schmitt), we undersand the political – in opposition to politics and
policies – as the dimension of antagonism or conflict which at the same
time divides a society but is inevitable for it to exist in its current form.
By referring to Slavoj Žižek we could definte the political as a symptom
of society, i.e. something which disturbs its foundations, but at the same
10 Rafał Mańko, Paulina Bieś-Srokosz, Jacek Srokosz
time cannot be removed without destroying it. The antagonisms can have
a very different nature – economic, social, cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.
– but what unites them is their intensity and their fundamental character.
The various papers brought together in this volume engage with this
theme in different manners. In the first chapter, Rafał Mańko presents a critical
account of comparative law’s taxonomy, pointing to the fact that the
way in which comparatists-at-law build their legal geography by grouping
legal systems together in so-called ‘families’ is not a neutral exercise, but has
strong political connotations. The second chapter, by Sergey Korolev looks
upon the antagonism between traditional political ideologies (nationalism,
liberalism, socialism) in the context of the antagonisms typical for federal
states (central power vs. regional entities). Drawing on political philosophy
(Plato), sociology (Bauman) and legal theory (Kelsen), Korolev argues
that the traditional ideological state, as established in the course of 18th
and 19th centuries in Western Europe, is no longrer capable of addressing
the current social problems. Believing that ideologies have been subject to
the introduction of alien content, Korolev argues that Kelsen’s ‘purity’ approach
can be adapted to the analysis of national ideologies, which can be
divided into two classes, namely substantive political ideologies and formal
political ideologies. The latter are used as a basis for developing a hypothetical
four-party state beyond the notorious unitarist – federalist dilemma.
Although framed on a high level of abstraction, Korolev’s paper can
be treated as a theoretical basis for the study of existing political systems
and ideologies, and his critical approach can be applied as a yardstick for
evaluating concrete ideological blueprints. The third chapter by Ekaterina
Yahyaoui Krivenko interprets the overall topic of the book by referring to
the relationship between public international law and space. This approach
is not surprising, as the classical object of public international law – the
state, its territory, its borders – has been somewhat obsessively focused on
space. It could even be said that public international law is exclusively about
space. Krivenko invites us, however, to reconsider the way in which public
international law views space. She argues that the current way in which
this is done is Cartesian, and that there is a need to overcome it. Referring
to the works of the famous critical geographer, David Harvey, Krivenko
offers us a critical re-examination of the law’s spatiality. Her proposals have
a direct impact upon the third subject-matter of the book, i.e. the political
which, in public international law, has traditionally referred to the antagonisms
between sovereign states. Krivenko introduces, however, new subjects
– nomads and migrants – whose perspective on space differs from the
traditional one. Through examples of disrupting public international law’s
traditional perception of space, Krivenko invites us to critically rethink its
approach with a view to pursuing new imaginaria of ius gentium.
Introduction 11
Two subsequent chapters address selected case studies from two different
countries. Thus, in the fourth chapter Berke Özenç addresses issues of
Rechtstaat in contemporary Turkey, drawing analogies with later the late period
of the Weimar Republic. Özenç points to such phenomena as the weakening
of legal security in the name of achieving justice and moves towards
a personalisation of political power. Hence, metaphorically speaking, the
constitutional space of Turkish public law is modified, and Özenç attempts
to grasp those changes by referring to the theoretical framework developed
by Carl Schmitt. The most important features he points to are the judicialization
of politics, the normalization of the state of emergency and the introduction
of the concept of the nation (‘being national’) into legal discourse. The
fifth chapter, written by Paulina Bieś-Srokosz analyses, from a critical perspective,
legal transfers from Western law within Polish administrative law.
Further case studies move us away from Europe, allowing us to gain
a broader perspective on law, space and the political. Thus, in the sixth
chapter, Shuichi Takahashi, addresses the Japanese law reforms from
a sociological perspective and in the seventh chapter Kirsten Pavlovic presents,
from a theoretical perspective, the so-called ‘sovereign dictatorship’
of President Iloilo in Fiji.
Following that, the book moves onto more theoretical grounds.
The eighth chapter by Jakub Łakomy interprets the topic of law and space
in the political by referring to the ‘space of the political’ in legal interpretation.
Łakomy discusses the well-known Dworkin-Fish debate and on this
basis concludes that the space of legal interpretation belongs entirely to the
space of the political, being merely a ‘patch’ on the much larger domain of
the political. In Łakomy’s view, whenever a legal interpreter undertakes the
activity of ‘reading the law’, they inevitably enter into the space of the political,
and each and every intellectual move they make is, in line with what was
said above, inherently political. The concept of the political remains a point
of reference for Paweł Snopek, author of the ninth chapter, who discusses
the relations between neoliberalism, ideology, social (in)justice and post-
-politics. In chapter ten, Jernej Letnar Černič dwells upon corporations and
socio-economic rights, in chapter eleven Ulrike Kistner introduces the not so
well known concept of ‘polycracy’ and in the twelfth chapter Su Bian shares
her views on contemporary constitution-making, broadly referring to the theories
of Carl Schmitt and Gunter Teubner. Finally, in the last chapter Jacek
Srokosz discusses the narrative put forward by lawyers in order to justify
their special status in contemporary systems of liberal democarcy.
Rafał Mańko, Paulina Bieś-Srokosz, Jacek Srokosz

Spis treści ebooka Law, Space and The Political: an East-West Perspective

Table of contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................9
Rafał Mańko
Chapter I. Legal Taxonomy and the Political: A Central European Perspective
1. Introduction .........................................................................................................14
2. Legal taxonomy as a discourse of hegemony .................................................16
3. Legal taxonomy as a discourse of normalisation and discipline..................20
4. Legal taxonomy as a matter of social construction.........................................22
5. Conclusions...........................................................................................................26
Sergey Korolev
Chapter II. Beyond Unitarism and Federalism: a New Concept of a Non-European
Multi-Party State
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................33
2. Sovereignty and Democracy..............................................................................34
3. Freedom and Equality.........................................................................................36
4. The New Ideology ..............................................................................................37
5. Unitarism and Federalism..................................................................................39
6. Conclusions...........................................................................................................43
Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko
Chapter III. Imagining Futures of International Law through Spacetime
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................47
2. The tripartite vision of space..............................................................................49
3. International law’s space....................................................................................51
4. Disrupting international law’s view of space..................................................58
5. Nomadism............................................................................................................65
6. Imagining spacetime with international law...................................................68
Berke Özenc
Chapter IV. Transformation of Legal Order in Turkey: A Comparison with Late
Weimar Germany
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................71
2. Rechtsstaat in Turkey: Setup, Implementation and Rupture........................73
3. The Weimar Experience: Schmitt, National Socialism and the Rechtsstaat......76
4. Instead of a Conclusion.......................................................................................80
Paulina Bieś-Srokosz
Chapter V. Legal Transplants in Administrative Law: Polish Experiences
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................85
2. Legal transplants in administrative law versus Polish legislative actions.....86
3. Conclusions...........................................................................................................91
Shuichi Takahashi
Chapter VI. Chaotic Attitudes towards Law and Legal Institutions: Japanese Judicial
Reform from a Law and Society Perspective
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................95
2. Introduction of Saiban-in System......................................................................96
3. Establishment of Law Schools...........................................................................99
4. Conclusions.........................................................................................................107
Kirsten Pavlovic
Chapter VII. The Sovereign Dictatorship of President Iloilo
1. Introduction........................................................................................................109
2. Iloilo’s rise to power .........................................................................................110
3. Prerogative Power.............................................................................................111
4. Final Note............................................................................................................125
Jakub Łakomy
Chapter VIII. The Space of the Political in Legal Interpretation (Some Remarks
on The Dworkin-Fish Debate)
1. Introduction........................................................................................................127
2. Epistemic communities and the political.......................................................128
3. Is a ‘chain novel’ apolitical?.............................................................................129
4. Fish’s reply to Dworkin....................................................................................132
5. Subject vs. objection of cognition: Fish and Kozak.......................................134
6. Conclusions.........................................................................................................136
Paweł Snopek
Chapter IX. Neoliberalism, ideology, social (in)justice and post-politics
1. Introduction........................................................................................................139
2. Ideology, justice, neoliberalism and post-politics.........................................140
3. Neoliberal understanding of freedom............................................................144
4. ‘Fantasy’ of freedom in neoliberal ideology..................................................147
5. Limits of freedom...............................................................................................150
6. The neoliberal freedom of contracts................................................................152
7. Neoliberal ideology and social justice............................................................155
8. Neoliberal freedom and post-politics.............................................................157
Jernej Letnar Černič
Chapter X. Corporations and Socio-economic rights
1. Introduction........................................................................................................161
2. Corporations and Socio-economic rights.......................................................163
3. The Nature and scope of corporate obligations concerning socio-economic
rights........................................................................................................................165
4. The way forward................................................................................................171
5. Conclusions.........................................................................................................173
Ulrike Kistner
Chapter XI. “Polycracy” – Concept, Controversies, and Consequences
1. The Appearance, Disappearance, and Reappearance of ‘Polycracy’.........175
2. ‘Polycracy’ as differentia specifica of Totalitarianism......................................176
3. Johannes Popitz on ‘Polycracy’........................................................................178
4. ‘Total State’ and ‘Totalitarianism’...................................................................180
5. Political restructuring in the absence of the political...................................186
6. ‘Binnenanalyse’ of total state theories – and beyond.....................................190
Su Bian
Chapter XII. Constituencies without constituent power: Some comments
on contemporary constitution-making
1. Introduction........................................................................................................194
2. ‘The political’ in Schmittian theory.................................................................196
3. Demise of the legitimation point.....................................................................201
4. Multiplication without integral nexus............................................................208
5. Conclusions.........................................................................................................211
Jacek Srokosz
Chapter XIII. Arguments for separate identity and particular importance
of lawyers in contemporary society in narrative of legal professions
1. Introduction........................................................................................................213
2. Thinking like a lawyer......................................................................................215
3. Axiological autonomy of lawyers...................................................................217
4. Cult of Meritocracy............................................................................................218
5. Special role of lawyers in contemporary society...........................................220
6. Critical analysis of lawyers’ narrative............................................................221
7. Conclusions.........................................................................................................223