Weberian versus Pluralistic Legal Forces in the Global Political Economy

<p>This picture supports a view that modernization processes lead naturally to legal structures similar to what can be observed in Western societies and that also global structures will emerge on the same model. Together with modernization theory another prominent theory often alluded to as ju...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Volkmar Gessner
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2013-10-01
Series:Oñati Socio-Legal Series
Subjects:
Online Access:http://ssrn.com/abstract=2272595
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Summary:<p>This picture supports a view that modernization processes lead naturally to legal structures similar to what can be observed in Western societies and that also global structures will emerge on the same model. Together with modernization theory another prominent theory often alluded to as justification for legalization is Institutional Economics where rules and institutions are considered mechanisms for effective transaction costs avoidance. My earlier publications compare these and other approaches for explaining the role of law in the economy. A third theory is Max Weber&rsquo;s legal rationalization, an evolutionary process running from traditional irrational forms to formal, bureaucratic forms of legal domination. Weber&rsquo;s view that legal rationalization is our &ldquo;fate&rdquo; and informal rules and institutions are necessarily outdated will be reconsidered from a historical perspective and confronted with empirical data gathered in the area of the governance of global business transactions. This article will attempt to show that although Weber&rsquo;s influential approach still helps to explain much of what occurs in domestic models of capitalism it doesn&rsquo;t seem to grasp the growing complexities of globalized capitalism.</p> <hr /><p>Este an&aacute;lisis apoya la opini&oacute;n de que los procesos de modernizaci&oacute;n conducen naturalmente a las estructuras jur&iacute;dicas similares a lo que se observa en las sociedades occidentales y que tambi&eacute;n las estructuras globales surgir&aacute;n en el mismo modelo. Junto con la teor&iacute;a de la modernizaci&oacute;n, otra teor&iacute;a prominente a menudo aludida como justificaci&oacute;n para la legalizaci&oacute;n es la Econom&iacute;a Institucional, donde las reglas y las instituciones se consideran mecanismos para evitar los costos de transacci&oacute;n de efectivo. Las publicaciones anteriores del autor comparan estos y otros enfoques para explicar el papel de la ley en la econom&iacute;a. Una tercera teor&iacute;a es la racionalizaci&oacute;n jur&iacute;dica de Max Weber, un proceso evolutivo que va desde las formas tradicionales a las formas irracionales formales y burocr&aacute;ticas de dominaci&oacute;n legal. Desde el punto de vista de Weber la racionalizaci&oacute;n jur&iacute;dica es nuestro "destino" y las normas e instituciones informales necesariamente obsoleta ser&aacute;n examinadas de nuevo desde una perspectiva hist&oacute;rica y confrontadas con los datos emp&iacute;ricos recogidos en el &aacute;mbito del gobierno de las transacciones comerciales globales. En este art&iacute;culo trataremos de mostrar que a pesar de que el enfoque influyente de Weber todav&iacute;a ayuda a explicar gran parte de lo que ocurre en los modelos internos del capitalismo, no parece comprender la creciente complejidad del capitalismo globalizado.
ISSN:2079-5971