Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T21:26:28.256Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Law and State Building in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Rachel Ellett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay is a response to Mark Massoud's Law's Fragile State, and through comparative inquiry argues that highly contextualized analysis of courts is critical to gaining an understanding of judicial decision making and judicial empowerment. As Massoud demonstrates, focusing on the legal complex is a particularly worthwhile endeavor in fragile states. Although we may understand the sociology of the legal profession, we do not fully understand how professional networks, career paths, and identities truly impact the institutional pathways of the courts and the legal system as a whole.

Type
Review Section
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , Spring 2016 , pp. 471 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bratton, Michael, and Van de Walle, Nicolas. 1997. Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carothers, T. 2002. The End of the Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5–21.Google Scholar
Ellett, R. 2013. Pathways to Judicial Power in Transitional States: Perspectives from African Courts. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ghai, Yash. 1987. Law, Development and African Scholarship. Modern Law Review 50 (6): 750–76.Google Scholar
Gould, Jeremy. 2012. Postcolonial Liberalism and the Legal Complex in Zambia: Elegy or Triumph? In Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post‐Colony: The Politics of the Legal Complex, ed., Halliday, Terence, Karpik, Lucien, and Feeley, Malcom, pp. 412–54. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, Terence. 2013. Why the Legal Complex Is Integral to Theories of Consequential Courts. In Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspectives, ed., Kapiszewski, Diana, Silverstein, Gordon, and Kagan, Robert. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, D., Silverstein, G., and Kagan, R.. 2013. Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kleinfeld, Rachel. 2012. Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Massoud, M. F. 2013. Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mooney, L., Schonteich, M., Windsor, J., and Rausch, C.. 2010. Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: A Conversation on its Evolution, Setbacks, and Future Challenges. International Lawyer 44 (2): 837–56.Google Scholar
Moustafa, T. 2007. The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Carol V. 1998. The “New” Law and Development Movement in the Post‐Cold War Era: A Vietnam Case Study. Law & Society Review 32:93–140.Google Scholar
Rudolph, S. H. 2005. The Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing World. Perspectives on Politics 1:5–14.Google Scholar
Tamanaha, Brian. 2011. The Rule of Law and Legal Pluralism in Development. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 3 (01): 1–17.Google Scholar
Trochev, A., and Ellett, R.. 2014. Judges and Their Allies—Rethinking Judicial Autonomy Through the Prism of Off‐Bench Resistance. Journal of Law and Courts 2 (1): 67–91.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M., and Galanter, Marc. 1974. Scholars in Self‐Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis and Development Studies in the United States. Wisconsin Law Review 1974:1062–1102.Google Scholar
Widner, Jennifer. 2001. Building the Rule of Law. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar