Law, Democracy, And Social Change

In an era that seems defined by both accelerated departures from standard democratic and legal procedures and by political gridlock, the question whether the legal system should serve as a bulwark of stability or a facilitator of changes already underway is the subject of intense debate.

Is the law a useful tool for changing or stopping a society seemingly going into another direction? Is it a democratically legitimate tool for such changes and if so, under what conditions? This course will cover theories of legal change in democratic societies and beyond and the complex relationship between economic factors, socio-cultural variables, and the legal system.

This theoretical groundwork will then help us assess case studies of such changes in their historical context. We will consider democratic foundings, abolition, the labor movement and its impact on the legal order, and law in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Our studies will be guided by a critical, sociologically-informed approach to the law and linked to normative theories of what law should — and should not — do in a democratic polity. The class is open to all students interested in the questions stated.

Students in this class will encounter key theories of legal change in a democracy and assess which factors facilitate or block such changes. They will also engage with numerous approaches to this theme — normative, historical, sociological — and evaluate how and when such approaches complement one another. Students will then apply different scholarly lenses to concrete historical cases and thus learn how to use the tools political theory and history provide for understanding contemporary legal changes.