Research Areas
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. You can find out about the projects and publications within each stream by clicking on the tabs below.
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. You can find out about the projects and publications within each stream by clicking on the tabs below.
Members: Anna Chadwick, Emilios Christodoulidis, Donald Buglass, Ruth Dukes, Marco Goldoni, Lilian Moncrieff
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. Research in this field connects both to the ‘Constitution, Work and the Political economy’ theme as well as the ERC funded project ‘Work on Demand’.
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. Research in this field connects both to the ‘Constitution, Work and the Political economy’ theme as well as the ERC funded project ‘Work on Demand’.
Members: Emilios Christodoulidis, Donald Buglass, Ruth Dukes, Marco Goldoni, Lilian Moncrieff
This project 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.
This project 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.
Members: Lilian Moncrieff, Emilios Christodoulidis, Ruth Dukes.
Theorising Corporate Governance (TCG) aims to create fresh interventions in corporate law and corporate governance scholarship. This GLT project uses legal-theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to resituate and reassess institutions applied to the ‘responsibilisation’ and ‘ecologisation’ of corporate actors, commonly thematised by business, policy makers, and academics as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER).
Key topics of concern include corporate legal history and industrial modernity, corporate liability and separate legal personality (SLP), new governance and reflexive law, corporate short-termism, global supply chain governance, and the meaning of corporate ‘sustainability’ after growth and large-scale environmental degradation in the ‘Human Age’ or the ‘Anthropocene.’
TCG has an interest in studying different sources of law and obligation (company law but also investment law, private law, climate litigation, business and human rights), which ‘constitute’ companies and markets, but which, also, might be used to deliver protective outcomes for impacted ‘stakeholders’ (workers, communities, the environment) in any emerging domestic and international corporate accountability sphere.
Recent projects and publications develop a ‘materialist’ approach to CSR and CER questions, using theory to create openings for the experience and perspective of communities impacted by corporate activities, sometimes in places and times distant to the centres of advanced capitalist economy and investment. This work aims to promote thought about the impactfulness of corporate organisations in a resource-intensive, technologized, and interconnected age, but, also, to bring clarity to some of the normative, legal and policy challenges that lie (deep) within CSR and CER. For TCG, these challenges become more visible or ‘real’ when the field is torn away from the perpetuation of ‘management’ questions and ‘business as usual’ systems or dynamics (trying to increase, through competition and incentive, the tolerance of companies for society), so that ‘corporate responsibility’ is figured 'materially' and disruptively, as a site for transforming companies and their relation with the world (when society responds normatively, politically, and institutionally to the impact and reach of big companies).
Theorising Corporate Governance (TCG) aims to create fresh interventions in corporate law and corporate governance scholarship. This GLT project uses legal-theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to resituate and reassess institutions applied to the ‘responsibilisation’ and ‘ecologisation’ of corporate actors, commonly thematised by business, policy makers, and academics as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER).
Key topics of concern include corporate legal history and industrial modernity, corporate liability and separate legal personality (SLP), new governance and reflexive law, corporate short-termism, global supply chain governance, and the meaning of corporate ‘sustainability’ after growth and large-scale environmental degradation in the ‘Human Age’ or the ‘Anthropocene.’
TCG has an interest in studying different sources of law and obligation (company law but also investment law, private law, climate litigation, business and human rights), which ‘constitute’ companies and markets, but which, also, might be used to deliver protective outcomes for impacted ‘stakeholders’ (workers, communities, the environment) in any emerging domestic and international corporate accountability sphere.
Recent projects and publications develop a ‘materialist’ approach to CSR and CER questions, using theory to create openings for the experience and perspective of communities impacted by corporate activities, sometimes in places and times distant to the centres of advanced capitalist economy and investment. This work aims to promote thought about the impactfulness of corporate organisations in a resource-intensive, technologized, and interconnected age, but, also, to bring clarity to some of the normative, legal and policy challenges that lie (deep) within CSR and CER. For TCG, these challenges become more visible or ‘real’ when the field is torn away from the perpetuation of ‘management’ questions and ‘business as usual’ systems or dynamics (trying to increase, through competition and incentive, the tolerance of companies for society), so that ‘corporate responsibility’ is figured 'materially' and disruptively, as a site for transforming companies and their relation with the world (when society responds normatively, politically, and institutionally to the impact and reach of big companies).
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’).
Members: Emilios Christodoulidis, Ruth Dukes, Marco Goldoni
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.
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.
Members: Emilios Christodoulidis, Lilian Moncrieff, George Pavlakos
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.
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.
Members: Ruth Dukes, Emilios Christodoulidis, Marco Goldoni
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.
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.
Members: Emilios Christodoulidis, Marco Goldoni, George Pavlakos
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.
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.
This stream brings together theorising crime and criminalisation, the institution of the criminal trial, broader questions of responsibility, and the use of criminal law in transitional justice and reconciliation. We ask: how are theories of criminalization linked to modern understandings of the criminal law as a conceptually distinct body of rules, and how this in turn has been shaped by the changing functions of criminal law as an instrument of government in the modern state? How are such dilemmas played out in the trial, both in its core function, as well as when its reach is extended – or ‘politicised’ - to achieve a broader set of objectives? And might we answer questions over how responsibility is attributed and/or withheld by the law in these contexts?
Members: Lindsay Farmer, Emilios Christodoulidis
This project explores a normative theory of the criminal trial as a way of defending the importance of trials in our criminal justice system. The trial, we argued, should be understood as a means of calling defendants to answer a charge, and if they were found to be criminally responsible, to account for their conduct. Within the broader framework of theorising the criminal trial there has developed also an interest on political trials.
This project explores a normative theory of the criminal trial as a way of defending the importance of trials in our criminal justice system. The trial, we argued, should be understood as a means of calling defendants to answer a charge, and if they were found to be criminally responsible, to account for their conduct. Within the broader framework of theorising the criminal trial there has developed also an interest on political trials.
Members: Lindsay Farmer, Emilios Christodoulidis
With a particular emphasis on transitional justice, its particular logic, emphasis on reconciliation or restoration, and its particular uses of criminal law, typically amnesty, there has developed an important research interest in Glasgow around the political uses of predominantly criminal and constitutional law to enable and institutionalise processes of regime change and social-political transition and the difficult demands it places on the law to navigate.
With a particular emphasis on transitional justice, its particular logic, emphasis on reconciliation or restoration, and its particular uses of criminal law, typically amnesty, there has developed an important research interest in Glasgow around the political uses of predominantly criminal and constitutional law to enable and institutionalise processes of regime change and social-political transition and the difficult demands it places on the law to navigate.
Members: George Pavlakos, Marco Goldoni
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.
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 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.
