The Research Circle aims to bring together and consolidate the intellectual insights of the four principal investigators and to draw into the circle a broader group of faculty so as to provide a nucleus for the emerging global network. As a starting point, the circle will focus on the main issues identified at the initial workshops sponsored by GLS:
the existence of competing sources of legitimate rules/laws;
the historic legacies of both the traditions of the formal legal system and resistance to it;
the role of legal education and professionalism;
the question of access to the law;
the relationship between formal law and systems of informal rules and dispute settlement; and
the sources of legal change and the effect of either endogenous or external determinants of law and legal change.
The principal investigators
Professor Heinz Klug (Law/African Studies)
Professor Kathryn Hendley (Political Science/Law/CREECA)
Professor Alexandra Huneeus (Law/Legal Studies/LACIS)
Professor Mara Loveman (Sociology/LACIS)
Activities of the Research Circle
Workshop on Role of Law in Developing and Transitional Societies, December 2008
Conference on Laws' Locations: The Textures of Legality in Developing and Transitional Societies - April 23-25, 2010
Speaker series (will continue throughout the Research Circle)
Law & Democratization - series of publications addressing the role of law in democratization in different regions of the world
Funding and administration
The funding for the Research Circle was provided by the International Institute and the Circle is administered by GLS.
Speaker Series on Role of Law in Developing and Transition Countries
Workshop on Role of Law in Developing and Transition Countries
Pre-dissertation travel grants, Summer 2011
A limited amount of funding is available for graduate students who are working on research relating to the GLS Research Circle on "Role of Law in Developing and Transition Countries. See call for papers.
