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Josselin, Jean-Michel; Marciano, Alain --- "Introduction Making sense of the state: a political economy approach" [2005] ELECD 102; in Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel (eds), "Law and the State" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: Law and the State

Editor(s): Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843768005

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction Making sense of the state: a political economy approach

Author(s): Josselin, Jean-Michel; Marciano, Alain

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

1. Introduction Making sense of the
state: a political economy approach
Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano

1 INTRODUCTION

Even if mainly devoted to private law, the law and economics literature has
certainly not neglected constitutional issues. In particular, the intricate rela-
tion between law and the state has been frequently analysed, either from a
positive point of view or for normative purposes. Thus, vexed questions were
raised as to the necessity to ground the legitimacy of the state on rules of law
or, reciprocally, as to the need to justify law in the state. To provide tentative
and partial answers to these questions, the different chapters that constitute
this book employ the specific tools of a political economy approach. These
will of course relate to the standard programme of constrained maximiza-
tion, but in which `institutions matter'. The first step is then the objective
function. When organizing the seminars leading to this book, we manifestly
did not have to be specific about an attachment to a democratic state as an
objective. Strikingly, the contributors dealing with this foundational
concern (how to shape a democratic state) all focused on the constraint
which delineates the democratic state, namely the informational constraint.
Publicity of law and of decisions, transmission, manipulation and creation
of information are some of the many facets that contribute to the delicate
balance between democracy as freedom and democracy as order (Part I). In
this respect, law and lawfulness prove to be media as strong as they are to ...