State, democracy and legal pluralism

Recommended Prerequisites

Basic skills in the field of social sciences are recommended. Considering that the seminars are lectured in English, it is a fundamental prerequisite that students have a knowledge of the English language that allows them an adequate comprehension and oral expression, as well as reading and interpreting academic texts. With regards to writing, students must have the appropriate skills to write in English or Portuguese or Spanish.

Teaching Methods

The seminars of this curricular unit will switch between moments of oral presentations by professors or students (presentation of texts or topics related to the programme) and moments of collective reflection and debate. These will include active teaching activities, such as group work and simulations. In order for the model to fully work, students must read the recommended readings before each class.

Learning Outcomes

The general objective of this curricular unit is to reflect upon the role of modern law in imposing a hegemonic model of state and democracy and to show that the world's diversity goes beyond the eurocentric legal canon.

Specific objectives are:

1. To analyse the historical, social and political processes of construction, development and expansion of the modern state;

2. To learn about the processes of deep constitutional change driven by social struggles in the global South;

3. To study different concepts, models and practices of democracy, considering the various historical and social trajectories in an intercultural perspective;

4. To learn the origin and development of the concept of legal pluralism and analyse it both as a colonial instrument and as a conceptual tool for the construction of post-abyssal legal cartographies;

5. To discuss the use of the epistemological and methodological tools of the Epistemologies of the South in order to approach the topics of this UC.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. State

1.1. The rule of law as an eurocentric project

1.2. The heterogeneous experiences of the transformative constitutionalism in the Global South

1.3. Challenges to the provincialization of modern law

2. Democracy

2.1. The different concepts of democracy, its traditions, conflicts and convergences

2.2. The different forms of political participation

2.3. Limits and strengths of democratic systems, in an perspective of intercultural dialogue

3. Legal pluralism

3.1. Introduction to the concept of legal pluralism and associated concepts (internal legal pluralism and heterogenous State)

3.2. Empirical studies

3.3. Legal pluralism as a colonial and capitalist expansion instrument

3.4. Legal pluralism in the debate on the right to equality and the right to difference

3.5. Global legal pluralism and the legality; subaltern cosmopolitan legality

4. Post-abyssal legal cartographies and methodologies of the Epistemologies of the South.

Head Lecturer(s)

Sara Alexandre Domingues Araújo

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Assessment will be dynamic and bipartite: written work in English, Portuguese or Spanish (70%) and oral participation in class (30%): 100.0%

Bibliography

Janse, Ronald. A (2013), “Turn to Legal Pluralism in Rule of Law Promotion?”, Erasmus Law Review, 6(3/4), 181-190.

Mattei, Ugo; Nader, Laura (2008), Plunder: When the rule of law is illegal. Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell.

Merry, Sally Engle (1988), “Legal Pluralism”, Law and Society Review, 22 (5), 869-896.

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2002), Towards a New Legal Common Sense. London: Butter-words.

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2014), Epistemologies of the South. Boulder: Paradigm.

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2006b), “The Heterogeneous State and Legal Pluralism in Mozambique”; Law & Society Review, 40(1), 39-76.