Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:38:04.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Law, the State, and Private Ordering: Evolutionary Explanations of Institutional Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The societal mega-trends of the past four decades, such as a globalizing economy and an aging society, have challenged the understanding of the state in OECD countries. The resulting “transformations of the state” are the subject of an interdisciplinary research agenda established at the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 597 in Bremen, Germany. A total of twenty projects from political science, law, and economics explore changes of statehood which take place in two different dimensions: first, the internationalization and, second, the privatization of activities and functions which were traditionally performed by and ascribed to the democratic, constitutional and interventionist state. While the first research phase (2003-2006) aimed at founding empirical descriptions of these internationalization and privatization processes, the current phase (2007-2010) is dedicated to explaining the observed changes in statehood. Within this general framework, the authors’ research project on “New Forms of Legal Certainty in Globalized Exchange Processes” deals with changes in the institutional organization of commerce.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 For the research programme see www.sfb597.uni-bremen.de.Google Scholar

2 The results of the different projects are summed up in two edited volumes: Transformations of the State? (Stephan Leibfried and Michael Zürn eds., 2005) and Transforming the Golden Age Nation State (Achim Hurrelmann, Stephan Leibfried, Kerstin Martens and Peter Mayer eds., 2007).Google Scholar

3 For the failed Hague Judgements Convention see e.g. Calliess, Gralf-Peter, Value-added Norms, Local Litigation, and Global Enforcement: Why the Brussels-Philosophy failed in The Hague, 5 German Law Journal 1489 (2004).Google Scholar

4 See further, Avinash K. Dixit, Lawlessness and Economics: Alternative Modes of Governance (2004).Google Scholar

5 See e.g. Bernstein, Lisa, Opting Out of the Legal System: Extralegal Contractual Relations in the Diamond Industry, 21 Journal of Legal Studies 138 (1992); Gunther Teubner, Contracting Worlds: The Many Autonomies of Private Law, 9 Social and Legal Studies 399 (2000).Google Scholar

6 See Calliess, Gralf-Peter, Dietz, Thomas, Konradi, Wioletta, Nieswandt, Holger & Sosa, Fabian, Transformations of Commercial Law, in Transforming the Golden Age Nation State, 83 (Achim Hurrelmann, Stephan Leibfried, Kerstin Martens and Peter Mayer eds., 2007).Google Scholar

7 Williamson, Oliver E., The Economics of Governance, 95 American Economic Review 1 (2005).Google Scholar

8 For a recent elaboration of this jurisprudential perspective, see further, Andreas von Arnauld, Rechtssicherheit. Perspektivische Annäherungen an eine “idee directrice” des Rechts (2006).Google Scholar

9 Dixit, , supra note 4, 24.Google Scholar

10 Helmut Dietl, Institutionen und Zeit (1993).Google Scholar

11 Dietz, Thomas & Nieswandt, Holger, Cross-Border Cooperation. The meaning of Cognitive and Normative Expectations for the Emergence of Global Research and Development Cooperation, TranState Working Paper No. 49/2007 (2007), available at http://www.sfb597.uni-bremen.de/pages/pubApBeschreibung.php?SPRACHE=de&ID=59, last accessed: 17 March 2008.Google Scholar

12 Konradi, Wioletta, Lex mercatoria als globales Recht der Wirtschaft? Die Koordination der Internationalen Transaktionen am Beispiel der Holzindustrie, TranState Working Paper No. 56/2007 (2007), available at http://www.sfb597.uni-bremen.de/pages/pubApBeschreibung.php?SPRACHE=de&ID=64, last accessed: 17 March 2008.Google Scholar

13 Fabian Sosa, Vertrag und Geschäftsbeziehung im grenzüberschreitenden Wirtschaftsverkehr (2007).Google Scholar

14 Calliess, /Dietz, /Konradi, /Nieswandt, /Sosa, , supra note 6.Google Scholar

15 See further, Macauly, Stewart, Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study, 55 American Sociological Review 86, (1963); MacNeil, Ian R., The New Social Contract: An Inquiry Into Modern Contractual Relations (1980).Google Scholar

16 Most prominently Eric A. Posner, Law and Social Norms (2000)Google Scholar

17 See generally Alan Redfern & Martin Hunter, Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration (2004), para. 1-69 et seq.Google Scholar

18 North, Douglas C., Institutions, 5 Journal of Economic Perspectives 97, (1991); see also John R. Commons, Institutional Economics. Its Place in Political Economy (1934).Google Scholar

19 See further, Stefan Okruch, Innovation und Diffusion von Normen (1999), 146-7.Google Scholar

20 Hannan, Michael T. and Freeman, John, Structural Inertia and Organizational Change, 49 American Sociological Review 149 (1984); Jörg Freiling, Ressourcenorientierte Reorganisationen: Problemanalyse und Change Management auf der Basis des Resource-based View (2001).Google Scholar

21 For example, Teece, David, Pisano, Gary & Shuen, Amy, Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management, 18 Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management 509 (1997).Google Scholar

22 North, supra note 18.Google Scholar

23 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Philosophie Zoologique (1809).Google Scholar

24 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859).Google Scholar

25 For example, Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (1972); Kenneth E. Boulding, Ecodynamics. A New Theory of Societal Evolution (1978); Keller, Albert G., Law in Evolution, 28 Yale Law Journal 769 (1919); Friedrich August von Hayek, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983).Google Scholar

26 For the impact on jurisprudence see Rainer-Maria Kiesow, Das Naturgesetz des Rechts (1997), especially chapter IV.Google Scholar

27 See Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System 230 (Fatima Kastner, Richard Nobles, David Schiff & Rosamund Ziegert eds. 2004) who deplores that most contemporary approaches lack “theoretical precision” and a “clear structure”.Google Scholar

28 Gibson Burrell & Gareth Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life (1979).Google Scholar

29 Richard R. Nelson & Sydney G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982).Google Scholar

30 For details see Okruch, SUPRA note 19) 47-51.Google Scholar

31 Williamson, SUPRA note 7); Okruch, SUPRA note 19) 102-127.Google Scholar

32 Cooter, Robert D., The Theory of Market Modernization of Law, 16 International Review of Law and Economics 141, 145 (1996); Oliver E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism 47 (1985) defines opportunism as “self-interest seeking with guile”.Google Scholar

33 Klaus Backhaus, Joachim Büschken and Markus Voeth, Internationales Marketing (2001); Jörg Freiling, Institutional Designs in International Transactions - An Evolutionary Economics Perspective (2006), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1093271, last accessed: 29 March 2008.Google Scholar

34 See Wolfgang Kerber's contribution to this issue.Google Scholar

35 Kerber, Wolfgang & Vanberg, Viktor, Constitutional Aspects of Party Autonomy and Its Limits - The Perspective of Constitutional Economics, in Party Autonomy and the Role of Information in the Internal Market 49 (Stefan Grundmann, Wolfgang Kerber & Stephen Weatherill eds., 2001).Google Scholar

36 See generally Teubner, Gunther, 'Global Bukowina': Legal Pluralism in the World Society, in Global Law without a State 3, (Gunther Teubner ed., 2006).Google Scholar

37 Fabian Sosa, Vertrag und Geschäftsbeziehung im grenzüberschreitenden Wirtschaftsverkehr (2007).Google Scholar

38 Zumbansen, Peer, Transnational Law, in Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, 738, (J. Smits ed., 2006); Calliess, Gralf-Peter & Renner, Moritz, From Soft Law to Hard Code: The Juridification of Global Governance (2007), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1030526, last accessed: 17 March 2008.Google Scholar

39 Arthur, Brian W., Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-in by Historical Events, 99 Economic Journal 116 (1989).Google Scholar

40 Richard R. Nelson and Sydney G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982).Google Scholar

41 This expression is used by Friedrich A. von Hayek throughout his work, see e.g. Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct, in Id., Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, 66, 77 (1967).Google Scholar

42 See Teubner, Gunther, Juridification – Concepts, Aspects, Limits, Solutions, in Juridification of Social Spheres 3, 9 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1987).Google Scholar

43 On the conceptual background of such developments see Michaels, Ralf & Jansen, Nils. Private Law Beyond the State? Europeanization, Globalization, Privatization, 54 American Journal of Comparative Law 843 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 See further, Luhmann, , supra note 27, 490, wondering whether the central role of law in European societies might be a mere “evolutionary anomaly”.Google Scholar

45 Calliess, /Renner, , supra note 38.Google Scholar

46 Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft 757-8 (1998).Google Scholar

47 Calliess, Gralf-Peter, Billigkeit und effektiver Rechtsschutz. Zu Innovation und Evolution des (Zivil-) Rechts in der Globalisierung, 26 Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 35, 41 (2005) 41.Google Scholar

49 Luhmann, , supra note 27, 148.Google Scholar

50 Id., 152.Google Scholar

51 See Zumbansen, , supra note 38.Google Scholar

52 Perhaps most notably Teubner, , supra note 36.Google Scholar

53 For details see Calliess, /Renner, , supra note 38.Google Scholar

54 Luhmann, supra note 27, 81.Google Scholar

55 Id., 106 et seq.Google Scholar

56 Calliess, Gralf-Peter, Reflexive Transnational Law. The Privatisation of Civil Law and the Civilisation of Private Law, 23 Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 185, 196 (2002).Google Scholar

57 Luhmann, , supra note 27, 271.Google Scholar

58 Id., at 231.Google Scholar

59 Id., 84-5.Google Scholar

60 Id., 232.Google Scholar

61 For details on this concept see Id., chapter 10.Google Scholar

62 Teubner, Gunther, Global Private Regimes: Neo-spontaneous Law and Dual Constitution of Autonomous Sectors in World Society, in Globalization and Public Governance 71 (Gunther Teubner & Karl-Heinz Ladeur eds., 2004).Google Scholar