Selected Problems in
Jurisprudence:
New Governance and the Transformation of Law
3 Credits
Instructor: David M. Trubek
This seminar will explore the rise of new forms of governance
and their implications for the future of law and legal practice.
Governments and international agencies around the world have begun
to use new tools and processes to achieve public policies.
Generically labeled “new governance”, these may involve the use
of broad standards instead of fixed rules; rely on networks of
policy makers, experts, stakeholders, NGOs and the public for
decision-making; encourage experimentation and reviseability;
employ measurement and monitoring in place of mandates and
sanctions; and privilege self-regulation. Ideally, this will
create a form of networked governance that would be reflexive
rather than coercive, problem-solving rather than controlling,
coordinating rather than mandatory, bottom-up rather than top-down.
Some scholars decry these developments, considering them a threat
to the rule of law, while others see them as the beginning of a
fundamental transformation of the legal order and one that requires
rethinking some basic ideas about law. To explore these issues, the
seminar will look at the new governance phenomenon in the context
of 20th Century legal theory and current discussions of
the changing role of government. It will lead up to a Transatlantic
Conference on “New Governance and the Transformation
of Law” to be held on November 20-21 as the annual Symposium
of the Wisconsin Law Review. This event will bring together leading
scholars from the US, Canada, and Europe to debate these
developments.
More information is available here: Conference
homepage
Students in the seminar will write 20 page papers on topics related to theme and are expected to attend conference sessions relevant to their paper. Papers are due at the end of the semester and would meet the upper level writing requirement.