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Research Themes |
The focus of the work of researchers in the Glasgow Legal Theory group, in its broadest sense, is the application of a critical lens to the foundational, doctrinal, and political questions of law. In doing so, our work seeks to generate an understanding of contemporary law that is both politically progressive and philosophically demanding.
This work is performed in diverse contexts and cuts across multiple areas of legal scholarship. Some recent themes of the group's research are summarised below, though these themes are by no means exhaustive.
This work is performed in diverse contexts and cuts across multiple areas of legal scholarship. Some recent themes of the group's research are summarised below, though these themes are by no means exhaustive.
Law & Political Economy
We are a group of researchers studying law in the context of contemporary political economy. Our work bridges different fields of economic regulation and governance - labour law and labour markets, corporate governance, financial law, central bank laws and monetary policy - and different methodological and theoretical approaches. What we share is a commitment to generating insight into the legal, social, and political nature of the question of how markets are constituted, and into how social institutions and modes of action and interaction might offer important potential for the re-design, re-set, and reform of economic institutions.
We carry out this work against the backdrop of the current era of financial crisis and austerity, as well as the immunisation of neoclassical economics and legal methodologies and processes cast within their grain. We want to dig out and complicate questions all too often silenced by the persistent drive to marketisation, to reflect on the all-important framing conditions and on how law might ‘think’ the economy anew.
We are committed to research-led teaching. Research carried out within the different projects on Law and the Political Economy informs an honours level course on the subject, as well as feeds into our wider teaching in Labour Law, European Law, and Corporate Governance.
We carry out this work against the backdrop of the current era of financial crisis and austerity, as well as the immunisation of neoclassical economics and legal methodologies and processes cast within their grain. We want to dig out and complicate questions all too often silenced by the persistent drive to marketisation, to reflect on the all-important framing conditions and on how law might ‘think’ the economy anew.
We are committed to research-led teaching. Research carried out within the different projects on Law and the Political Economy informs an honours level course on the subject, as well as feeds into our wider teaching in Labour Law, European Law, and Corporate Governance.
Law and Markets
Considerable attention is paid by governments, regulators, and legal scholars to questions of how law can be used to improve the governance of markets, such as through the introduction of financial regulations, or by strengthening social and economic rights to achieve desirable social ends. Projects in this stream seek to explore the myriad ways in which markets are already predicated upon and operationalised through legal regimes that are rarely problematised, or even visible, in regulatory approaches to market governance, such as through contract law, or through criminal law. Researchers in this stream are also in dialogue with economic theory, and with other scholarly traditions that seek to understand the nature of markets and their roles in society.
The research stream also analyses the complex and multi-layered relationship between social rights and markets. We are interested in how the relationship between social rights and markets might be conceptualised, and how conflict and competition between the two might be theorised.
One particular branch of this research looks at labour law and labour markets. Building on the findings of the ‘Constitution and Work’ project, this new project aims to deepen understandings of the ways in which contractual practices in the world of work are shaped by the social and economic institutional context and, especially, by collective structures of regulation and representation.
The research stream also analyses the complex and multi-layered relationship between social rights and markets. We are interested in how the relationship between social rights and markets might be conceptualised, and how conflict and competition between the two might be theorised.
One particular branch of this research looks at labour law and labour markets. Building on the findings of the ‘Constitution and Work’ project, this new project aims to deepen understandings of the ways in which contractual practices in the world of work are shaped by the social and economic institutional context and, especially, by collective structures of regulation and representation.
Theorising the Constitution
Constitutional theory forms a key research area, and it is around the concept of the Constitution, its function, its relation to politics and the economy, that a number of projects and research interests intersect. Amongst them, the discussion of how the Constitution gives form to the relation between constituent and constituted power, and to the relation between the public (forum) and the private (market); as to whether the Constitution can be usefully conceptualised at supranational levels (European, ‘cosmopolitan’, global); as sectional (economic, political, social constitutions); as incremental and dynamic (‘constitutionalisation’) or as plural (‘constitutional pluralism’).
Critical Constitutional Theory
The political dimension is key to an understanding of the Constitution that emerged historically as the legal institution for the containment, control and channelling of political power, as it is key to the way in which legal theory understands its own role as critical theory, in terms of the concepts and distinctions it offers to make sense of the field of constitutional practice.
Law, Globalisation and Governance
The emphasis is on power structures operating at the global level, on the impact of markets and the nature of international legal regimes, on the scope, subjects and grounds of legal obligations in supra-national and international law, as well as on theories of global justice and cosmopolitan political ideals of mutual recognition.
Constitution, Work and the Political Economy
This project considers the possibilities for a critical theorisation of labour law. It asks, more specifically, whether the idea of the constitutionalisation of employment relations under changing global conditions can help us towards such a theorization; and, in addition, how we might make sense of the idea of ‘constitutionalisation’ in this context.
The ‘Material Constitution’ is a stream that reconstructs the idea of the ‘material constitution’ as a development, at the level of constitutional theory, of two schools of thought: on one hand, law and the political economy, on the other, the theory of normative orders. Its aim is to contribute to a nuanced and accurate understanding of State and supranational constitutions in the service of a critical approach.
The ‘Material Constitution’ is a stream that reconstructs the idea of the ‘material constitution’ as a development, at the level of constitutional theory, of two schools of thought: on one hand, law and the political economy, on the other, the theory of normative orders. Its aim is to contribute to a nuanced and accurate understanding of State and supranational constitutions in the service of a critical approach.
Multi-level Constitutionalism
This stream of research concentrates on the questions of how various orders of law at the national, supranational, transnational and global levels relate, interact and conflict and how we might theoretically address the resulting complexity and attendant normative challenges. These questions are asked both in their theoretical dimension but also with an eye to recovering a deeper practical interest in conditions of living together under relations of equality and community within, across and beyond nation states, and critically to addressing the multiple failures of current structures of governance.
Law & Metaphysics
Law & Metaphysics at GLT supports an interdisciplinary approach to metajurisprudential questions, drawing on members’ expertise in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, as well as legal, moral and political philosophy. Questions that currently attract the attention of metajurisprudential inquiry include the theorising of legal relations, law’s dependence on institutional and pre-institutional relations, the ways in which legal epistemology tracks its metaphysics and the place law occupies within the broader domain of normative reality. Deepening our understanding of the foundations of law and legal systems ultimately has a practical purpose for us: to help us confront the key legal and political challenges of our age, intervene in the social construction of roles and identities and tackle structural injustice, and promote modes of governance that respect equality, freedom and respect for diverse forms of human flourishing.
The GLT’s growing interest and expertise in contributing to the shaping of the emerging metajurisprudential agenda have also led to a systematic collaboration with the UoG Department of Philosophy. For more details on our networking initiative with colleagues from the Department of Philosophy please visit the website of the Glasgow Law and Philosophy Network.
The GLT’s growing interest and expertise in contributing to the shaping of the emerging metajurisprudential agenda have also led to a systematic collaboration with the UoG Department of Philosophy. For more details on our networking initiative with colleagues from the Department of Philosophy please visit the website of the Glasgow Law and Philosophy Network.
Normative Institutional Orders
The impact of globalisation on the law offers a unique opportunity to take a fresh look at the classical jurisprudential debates about the nature of law, the structure and foundations of institutional orders and the grounds of legal normativity. Connecting with the recent turn, within the core areas of philosophy, to meta-philosophical inquiry we develop an interdisciplinary account which privileges constructivist premises in the understanding of legal norms as institutional facts and the explanation of legal normativity in virtue of deeper structures of practical reason. In historical terms, this research aims to revive and deepen a long-standing interest in practices of legal reasoning and the institutional dimension of the law which has been prominent within Scottish jurisprudence.
