The International Journal of Law in Context is a new journal and a new venture. But it takes its cue from, and builds upon, the established series of books which nestle under the overarching title ‘Law In Context’. This imprint has been leaving its impact on legal scholarship for more than 30 years. Many ‘classics’ have been produced. It is fitting that one of the progenitors of the series, William Twining, writes in this inaugurating issue. ‘Law In Context’ has extended the discipline of law, opened up the teaching of law and stimulated scholarship both within and outside the law academy. Not least, it has encouraged the growth of new journals.

Our increasingly cosmopolitan discipline needs to be underpinned by a revival of the idea of general jurisprudence, in which generalisations – conceptual, normative, empirical, legal – about legal phenomena are treated as problematic. This paper argues that, as part of this, analytical jurisprudence should broaden its focus not only geographically, but also in respect of the range of concepts, conceptual frameworks, and discourses that it considers. How far is any of our current stock of concepts adequate for talking meaningfully across legal traditions and cultures? Which concepts ‘travel’ relatively well or badly and why? Such questions are illustrated with reference to discourses about legal rights, the treatment of prisoners, and corruption.

Aristotle, in his Ethics, argued that good legislators should pay more attention to friendship than to law. Common law, however, has trouble with friendship and has historically taken the view that agreements between friends are unenforceable for lack of intention to create legal relations. The roots of this presumption against amicable agreements lie in theology and antique ecclesiastical case law. Those sources are reviewed here and it is argued that seemingly progressive decisions that accord cohabiting friends legal recognition as spouses have the paradoxical effect of depriving them of contractual capacity. They join traditionally married couples in the ‘amity’ of the household which case law defines as an Alsatia outside of law. It is argued that such a consequence is both unintended and undesirable.

There is a deep, if invisible conflict between our consumer culture and our democratic ideals. It is the result of social processes that, in the last half century, have profoundly transformed how we live and who we are. This paper explores the underpinnings of the condition that many identify as ‘late’ or ‘post’ modernity. Rather than focusing on the intellectual transformations wrought by the Enlightenment, it takes up Charles Taylor’s dialectical account of the relation between the social developments of modernity and changes in social understandings. It then considers the nature and import of our contemporary practices and conditions, their relation to the ‘postmodern’, and their implications both at home and abroad for the ability to sustain meaningful democracies under conditions of globalisation.

The nature of the contribution that fathers make to families is the subject of intense debate by both academics and policymakers. Contact between non-resident fathers and their children has been promoted by government and the courts, but remains difficult to achieve. This paper reports on interview data collected from fathers, mothers and their adolescent children in intact families on the perceptions of fathering practices and the factors that influence them. In addition, the nature and extent of fathers’ involvement with their children is explored in relation to the problem of ‘boundary setting’.

While the traditional, rather distant, breadwinning father has disappeared, there is no evidence from this study of a shift towards the kind of father who takes equal day-to-day responsibility for his children. Rather, the changes in the nature of fathers’ involvement with their children are more subtle, relying to a large extent on an appreciation of the importance of ‘passive care’ and of mediation by mothers. We suggest that these findings have important implications for what might be expected by and of fathers when relationships break-up, and for the development of policies to encourage father involvement.