Legalism and Revival of Treason

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Duncan McCargo
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Judicial Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Political Trials

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the political trials that were a marked feature of public life in Thailand in the decade after 2006. The Thai legal system is primarily dedicated to the preservation of peace and order, rather than to more liberal goals such as promoting rights-based justice, or even to the conservative, technocratic objective of promoting the rule of law. However, the conduct of political trials in the final decade of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's reign led perversely to a decline in peace and order, as the justice system itself became a focus for discontent. Banning pro-Thaksin Shinawatra parties twice in just over eighteen months, while acquitting the Democrat Party on similar charges, provoked accusations of “double standards.” Jailing various pro-Thaksin figures for long spells on the basis of dubious lèse-majesté or cybercrime charges that were framed as acts of treason beggared belief in a twenty-first century democracy. Conflicts between two major political factions were acted out in courtrooms that became proxy sites for much larger, more unmanageable, and unwinnable contests. This book then focuses on a particular period of Thailand's judicial politics: from the contentious April 2006 general election, until the passing away of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October 2016. This was the era of tulakanphiwat, most commonly translated as “judicialization”: an era when the courts were apparently given a special—if rather unclear—royal mission to solve the country's intractable political problems.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas I. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Legal Principle ◽  
Ethical Disposition

In academic debates and popular political discourse, tolerance almost invariably refers either to an individual moral or ethical disposition or to a constitutional legal principle. However, for the political actors and ordinary residents of early modern Northern European countries torn apart by religious civil war, tolerance was a political capacity, an ability to talk to one’s religious and political opponents in order to negotiate civil peace and other crucial public goods. This book tells the story of perhaps the greatest historical theorist-practitioner of this political conception of tolerance: Michel de Montaigne. This introductory chapter argues that a Montaignian insistence that political opponents enter into productive dialogue with each other is worth reviving and promoting in the increasingly polarized democratic polities of the twenty-first century.

The Role of Courts in Rifted Democracies

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Gavison
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Harsh Criticism

A discussion of the role of courts in Israel today demands some introductory remarks. The Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Court enjoy great acclaim and respect within Israel and abroad, but have recently come under attack from a variety of sources. These attacks are often confused, and many of them are clearly motivated by narrow partisan interests and an inherent objection to the rule of law and judicial review. But these motives do not necessarily weaken the dangers which the attacks pose to the legitimacy of the courts in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, in Israel's public life. The fact that in some sectors extremely harsh criticism of the court is seen to be an electoral boost, testifies to the serious and dangerous nature of the threat. This situation creates a dilemma for those who want a strong and independent judiciary, believing it is essential for freedom and democracy, but who also believe that, during the last two decades, the courts have transgressed limits they should respect. The dilemma becomes especially acute when the political echo sounds out in one's criticism, and when one is part of the group that believes that the legal and the judicial systems have made some contribution to the prevalence of these hyperbolic and dangerous attacks, as I am.

Introduction and Overview

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Prewitt
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Classification Scheme ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Racial Classification ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Definition Of

This introductory chapter discusses how there was a racial classification scheme in America's first census (1790), as there was in the next twenty-two censuses, up until the present. Though the classification was altered in response to the political and intellectual fashions of the day, the underlying definition of America's racial hierarchy never escaped its origins in the eighteenth-century. Even the enormous changing of the racial landscape in the civil rights era failed to challenge a dysfunctional classification, though it did bend it to new purposes. Nor has the demographic upheaval of the present time led to much fresh thinking about how to measure America. The chapter contends that twenty-first-century statistics should not be governed by race thinking that is two and a half centuries out of date.

1 Introduction to Arbitration in Hong Kong

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moser Michael ◽  
Bao Chiann
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
International Arbitration ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
High Degree

This introductory chapter discusses the contributing factors that make Hong Kong a global arbitration centre that ‘meets or even exceeds all standards’ in the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators’ ten principles of an effective, efficient, and ‘safe’ seat of international arbitration. Hong Kong has long been at the forefront of international arbitration developments. It enjoys a high degree of autonomy (except in defence and foreign affairs) and retains a separate legal system from that of mainland China. Hong Kong’s legal system is based on the English common law and is guaranteed in Hong Kong’s constitutional instrument, the Basic Law. Furthermore, Hong Kong has a long tradition of upholding the rule of law and judicial independence, which are two key foundations for the city’s success as a global dispute resolution centre.

scholarly journals Modern Rape-Revenge Movies and Shelley’s The Cenci

k ta ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
Sahar Jamshidian ◽  
Fazel Asadi Amjad
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Female Victim ◽  
Prometheus Unbound ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
The Face ◽  
Traditional Pattern ◽  
Second Wave

Viewing Shelley’s The Cenci from the political upheavals of the nineteenth century would limit one’s response to the play to the issues of that century. However, this play continues to be played in the twenty first century, which makes one wonder how a modern spectator with a feminist inclination might react to the theme of rape and revenge. The Cenci shares with a number of movies flourishing with the rise of the second wave feminism during the 1970s, the theme of a female victim transformed into a hero-avenger, who takes law into her own hands and avenges herself in the face of a dysfunctional legal state. As revisions of the archetypal narratives of violation-revenge-violation, these modern movies have been praised for depicting heroines who are no longer powerless, miserable and victimized, but strong enough to avenge themselves with impunity. Though The Cenci repeats the traditional pattern of violation-revenge-violation, it focuses on the corruption and irresponsibility of the patriarchal legal system as well as its reformation, which have been neglected by both mythical narratives and modern rape-revenge movies. By reading The Cenci along with William Blake’s “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” and Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound,” we examine how The Cenci challenges the modern rape-revenge movies and how Beatrice could have used her agency and her anger in a more effective way to fight against tyranny. 

Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Waterhouse
Keyword(s):  
Business Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Business ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Organizational Cohesion

This introductory chapter argues that the decline of liberal and progressive politics and the ascent of a business-oriented, neoliberal political culture did not emerge naturally from the exigencies of economic crisis or the inexorable logic of political traditions, but rather as the result of specific efforts by a diverse set of conservative activists. Although their organizational cohesion did not endure, organized American business leaders nonetheless established a vital legacy that continues to shape politics into the twenty-first century. Through their political mobilization, these workhorses of the industrial economy helped establish the political preconditions for the success of conservative politics, electorally and in policymaking. By successfully parlaying their economic clout into a broad-reaching movement, they cemented a conservative and market-oriented political vision whose legacy lingers today.

Law in Asia: The Key Role of Law as a Productive Force for Development

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus A. Ziegert
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociology Of Law ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Comparative Sociology ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
Structural Adaptability

The paper focuses on the potential of comparative sociology of law as an instrument for analysing the effective operation of law in society. This approach links normative and empirical approaches to legal research. Applying advanced sociological theory of law, the paper analyses how social and legal change affect development generally, and focuses the analysis on a comparative sample of countries along a geographical route linking Asia with Europe and vice versa, vaguely reminiscent of the historical Silk Roads on land and by sea.Sociological theory suggests analysing social and legal change from the perspective of the dynamics of the functional systems of world society rather than from a normative legal perspective which has individual territorial states and their national state law as a point of reference. The functional systems of world society, such as families (the family system), economics (the economic system), politics (the political system), civil society and law (the legal system) can be seen as both exerting stress on each other and adjusting to this stress by a structural change in local populations with sufficient structural adaptability towards a higher differentiation of all social structures.The rule of law emerges as a special pattern of this structural differentiation which compounds the structural adaptability of above all in the legal system and the political system world-wide. In turn, the rule of law is a condition for increasing the adaptive flexibility of social structures in local populations. The rule of law is, therefore, a crucial element in the on-going development of society. This pattern is not historically given once and for all. nor is it linked to particular forms of government and political systems. Understood in this way, the rule of law is not a normative political or constitutional wish-list but a social phenomenon which can provide comparative sociology of law with a useful set of indicators for describing the development of society and its law.

The Trial of Jesus in an Age of Trials

1972 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-465
Author(s):  
Thomas F. O'Meara
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
The Political ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Political Trials ◽  
Court Process

“Political trials and political prisoners accuse their society of being frozen in what is wrong. The legal system must take its course, but in and through the judicial process itself, trials raise the agonizing and ultimately insoluble conflict between man and his laws. The courtroom offers a platform for critical and prophetic views and the deeper questions of whether law and court process are identical with what is good and true. The jurisprudential and the political are not enough; the movement struggles beyond to the 'theological.'”

Introduction: A Quick History of the Present

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Racial Hatred ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The 1960S

This introductory chapter provides a background of anti-system politics. The term “anti-system” was coined by political scientist Giovanni Sartori in the 1960s to describe political parties that articulated opposition to the liberal democratic political order in Western democracies. The reasons for the rise in anti-system politics are structural, and have been a long time brewing. The success of anti-system parties forces us to ask fundamental questions about the nature of the political and economic system, and the way in which the twenty-first-century market economy affects people’s lives. Rather than dismissing anti-system politics as “populism,” driven by racial hatred, nebulous foreign conspiracies, or an irrational belief in “fake news,” people need to start by understanding what has gone wrong in the rich democracies to alienate so many citizens from those who govern them.

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