A Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law
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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON LEGAL HISTORY 16 GUNNAR FOLKE SCHUPPERT A Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON LEGAL HISTORY 16 Global Perspectives on Legal History A Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory Open Access Publication http://global.rg.mpg.de Series Editors: Thomas Duve, Stefan Vogenauer Volume 16 Global Perspectives on Legal History is a book series edited and published by the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As its title suggests, the series is designed to advance the scholarly research of legal historians worldwide who seek to transcend the established boundaries of national legal scholarship that typically sets the focus on a single, dominant modus of normativity and law. The series aims to privilege studies dedicated to reconstructing the historical evolution of normativity from a global perspective. It includes monographs, editions of sources, and collaborative works. All titles in the series are available both as premium print-on-demand and in the open-access format. GUNNAR FOLKE SCHUPPERT A Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law Translation by Rhodes Barrett MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR LEGAL HISTORY AND LEGAL THEORY 2021 ISBN 978-3-944773-30-8 eISBN 978-3-944773-31-5 ISSN 2196-9752 First published in 2021 Published by Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main Printed in Germany by epubli, Prinzessinnenstraße 20, 10969 Berlin, http://www.epubli.de Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory Open Access Publication http://global.rg.mpg.de Published under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de Cover illustration: Copyright: KNA GmbH, www.kna.de, all rights reserved (Richterroben an einer Garderobe am Bundesverfassungsgericht Karlsruhe); image processing: Christian Pogies Cover design by Elmar Lixenfeld, Frankfurt am Main Recommended citation: Schuppert, Gunnar Folke (2021), A Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law (Global Perspectives on Legal History 16), Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, http://dx.doi.org/10.12946/gplh16 Contents Introduction WhyaGlobalHistoryofIdeasintheLanguageofLaw?......... 1 A. Thehistoryofideasasahistoryoflanguages............ 1 B. The language of law as a language of politics relevant to the history of ideas: five functions in fivecontexts....... 4 I. The language of law as a language of discourses onthelegitimacyofpoliticalauthority.............. 4 II. The language of law as a language of political change . 8 III. The language of law as a language of rights . ......... 16 IV.Thelanguageoflawasalanguageofjustice.......... 24 V. The language of law as the language of a new global order 27 C. Inconclusion.................................. 31 Part One GlobalHistoryasaGlobalHistoryofIdeas.................. 33 Introduction........................................ 33 A. How ideas and knowledge travel: a little story to begin with 33 B. What are global history and the global history of ideas ?. 37 I. Fieldsandtopicsofglobalhistory................. 38 II. Key concepts and figuresofthought............... 39 III. Global history as perspective . ................... 40 IV.Globalhistoryofideas–threesearchlights........... 43 ChapterOne:WhatSortofIdeas?......................... 44 A. Anarroworbroadconceptofidea?................... 44 B. Dodisciplinesmatter?............................ 45 C. The phenomenon of contact zones between disciplines . 49 Chapter Two: Global Intellectual Fields and Global Legal Spaces – WhatConstitutesanIntellectualFieldandaLegalSpace?........ 54 A. Global intellectual and knowledge fields and legal spaces ascommunicationspaces.......................... 54 I. The workings and forms of communication spaces . 54 II. Professionsandtheirlanguage................... 57 Contents V B. Two examples of deterritorialized communication aboutlawandlife-determiningideas.................. 59 I. The “jus commune” as communicatively generated and disseminateduniversalistlegalthought.............. 59 II. Religious communities as important communication communitiesinthehistoryofideas................ 62 Chapter Three: The History of Ideas and Knowledge as EntangledHistory.................................... 71 A. Globalization history as entangled history: the need for systematicentanglementresearch..................... 71 B. Communication-intensive networks as a prime instance of entanglement structures: two historical examples. 75 I. The Gelehrtenrepublik / Republic of Letters / République des Lettres as communication network . 77 II. The Enlightenment as a process of transnational coproductionofknowledge..................... 79 C. Two types of entanglement actor at work: “state nomads” or “empire agents” and “go-betweens in a brokered world” . 81 I. Statenomadsandempireagents.................. 81 II. Government by go-betweens in a brokered world . 82 Part Two Three Key Functions of Law and its Language in aGlobalHistoryofIdeas............................... 85 Chapter One: First and Foremost: The Abstraction and TransformationFunctionsofLawanditsLanguage............. 86 A. Two examples of the abstraction functions of the language oflaw........................................ 86 I. The“invention”ofthelegalperson................ 86 II. The reception of Roman law as acquisition ofanewlanguage............................ 89 B. Two examples of the transformation functions of law and itslanguage.................................... 91 I. Transformation of power into authority: the “invention” of public office.............................. 91 II. Law as congealed politics: the transformation function ofconstitutionallaw.......................... 93 VI Contents Chapter Two: The Institutionalization Functions of Law: The Language of Law as the Language of Order and Conflict Resolution 95 A. Thelanguageoflawasalanguageoforder............. 95 B. The language of law as a language of conflict resolution . 98 I. Political culture as conflictculture................. 98 II. The need for a “modus vivendi” and “modus procedendi” for normative conflicts – formulated in the language of law 100 ChapterThree:LawasaSphereofResonance................. 103 A. What is resonance and what does the answer teach us aboutourtopic?................................ 103 B. Typesofstateand“their”law....................... 105 I. The state of industrial society and the existential responsibility of the state as ordering idea of the modernadministrativestate...................... 106 II. The preventive state and “its” preventive security law. 110 III. The concept and workings of the preventive state . 111 C. From the private law of the constitution to the constitution of private law: the necessary correspondence between the conceptual models of jurisprudence and socialandeconomicconditions...................... 114 I. The necessary correspondence between law and social reality or why legal concepts can not only age butalsolosetheirfunction...................... 114 II. From private law as constitution to the constitution ofprivatelaw............................... 116 D. Themultiplelifeworldsofthelaw:thehelpfulperspective oflegalpluralism................................ 118 I. Thesocietiesoflaw........................... 118 II. Communities of law and their specificworld-views..... 119 Part Three Legal Concepts and Legal Regimes in a Global History of Ideas . 123 Chapter One: Worldwide Enlightenment and Universal Natural Law 124 A. TheEnlightenmentasglobalhistory.................. 124 B. TheEnlightenmentasahistoryofinstitutions........... 126 I. Functional diversity of the typical Enlightenment institutionuniversity.......................... 127 Contents VII II. The language of jurisprudence as increasingly important language of politics in the early modern principality . 129 C. Enlightenmentasthehistoryofpower................. 131 D. The Enlightenment as legal history: the epochal importance ofnaturallaw.................................. 133 I. Whatexactlyisnaturallaw?..................... 133 II. The multifunctionality and two faces of natural law . 135 III. The language of natural law as a language of politics . 138 IV. Natural law as a phenomenon concomitant withglobalization?............................ 143 Chapter Two: The Language of International Law as aLanguageofPolitics................................. 145 A. Some particularities of the language of international law . 145 I. The key role of language in a legal regime between ideasandfacts............................... 145 II. The importance and function of “semantic shifts” in the fieldofinternationallaw..................... 148 III.Powerpoliticsas“semanticimperialism”............ 150 B. The language of international law as a language of justification. 153 I. The history of international law as a history of justificatorynarratives....................... 153 II. The function of justificatorynarratives.............. 156 III. Two examples of justificatory narratives in international law 157 IV. The struggle for command of the sea in the guise of competition between sectional justificatory narratives. 162 V. Dominion over justificatory narratives as truly hegemonicpower............................ 170 C. The history of international relations as a history of juridification 171