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Cited by 3Legal and Social PhilosophyComparative constitutional jurisprudence studiesLegal and Constitutional Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 47 of the 51 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Many Uses of Law: Interactional Law as a Bridge between Instrumentalism and Law’s Values

Taekema, Sanne·2017·In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence
DOI 10.1017/9781316875056.006
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Abstract

Legal instrumentalism has a bad name: it is criticized for reducing law to a policy instrument for external political or economic goals. In this paper I aim to rehabilitate instrumentalism, at least to some extent, by reinterpreting it from the perspective of pragmatist interactionism. By seeing law as emerging from the interactional expectancies of people towards one another, law is conceptually based on horizontal relationships (building on the theory of Lon Fuller). In the paper I will argue that this horizontal orientation can provide a specific version of an instrumental view of law because it pluralizes law’s instrumentality. Law is no longer seen as a policy instrument in the hands of authorities, but as a tool for everyone who makes use of it (making use of John Dewey’s pragmatism). Such a bottom-up account of law as an instrument requires arguing how the purposive activities of people in legal practices shape law as an interactional phenomenon. It also requires an argument on how the horizontal and vertical dimensions of law are connected. This means exploring to what extent law as set by official authority figures in, limits or enables, the different uses ordinary people make of law. Legal mobilization by activist individuals and groups is used to see how the vertical relationship involves bottom-up instrumentalization of law and how this relates to law's values. Keywords: legal pluralism, legal theory, legal values, bottom-up perspective, pragmatism and law

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Tamanaha, 2006, The Perils of Pervasive Legal Instrumentalism, 67
  2. Fuller, 1981, The Principles of Social Order. Selected essays of Lon L. Fuller
  3. Dewey, 1988, The Middle Works, 1899–1924, 121
  4. Radbruch, 1993, Gustav Radbruch, Gesamtausgabe, Band 2: Rechtsphilosophie II, 205
  5. Dewey, 1984, The Later Works, 1925–1953, 196

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Metadata

Authors
Taekema, S.
Affiliations
Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
Corresponding author
Taekema, Sanne
ORCID
Taekema, Sanne
Venue
In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Published
2017-09-14
Pages
116-135
DOI
10.1017/9781316875056.006
OpenAlex
W2299354244
Cited by
3
References
51
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 1
FWCI
1.57
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 1 d)
Locations
  • Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
  • EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Erasmus+
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Legal and Social Philosophy
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Legal and Constitutional Studies
Keywords
legal instrumentalism, legal pluralism, Lon Fuller, John Dewey, legal values, legal mobilization, horizontal relations, legal theory

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