Law, Modernity, Postmodernity

This title was first published in 2003. This book examines the interrelationship between the unravelling of the post-war welfare state and legal change. By reference to theorists of postmodernity such as Zygmunt Bauman, Scott Lash and John Urry, and David Harvey, the principal argument is that contemporary law and legal institutions can be best understood as having changed in ways that mirror the recent transformation of the interventionist welfare state and its Fordist, Keynesian economic infrastructure. The key changes identified in the legal field include:- the shift toward marketized regulatory structures as reflected in privatization and deregulation, the attenuation of welfare rights, the privatization of justice, legal polycentricity, the reconfiguration of the welfare state’s social citizenship and the globalization of law. Empirical evidence from a number of jurisdictions is adduced to indicate the general direction of change. The cumulative extent of recent social and legal change also forms the basis of a re-evaluation of some influential neo-evolutionist analyses of the nature of law in the welfare state, such as those of Unger, Teubner, Friedmann, Selznick and Habermas, as well as a critical re-assessment of some contemporary postmodern legal theory.