Law Shapes Politics: How Legal Structure Influences Political Discourse and Policymaking at All Levels of Governance

12 Pages Posted: 25 Oct 2014

Date Written: October 23, 2014

Abstract

Politics can shape law, and law influences politics. That is, even if the rule of law and legal structure are not present at the forefront of the policy process, law and legal structure and tradition certainly still impact politics – including the execution of political agendas and the action of political actors within a society. Perhaps it is fair to consider legal structure an afterthought in the policy process. However, legal structure serves as the foundation for a functional society; it directly provides a platform upon which policymaking can even transpire. Without legal structure in society, there could be no political discourse of any meaning.

Legal rules and structure are present, if even an afterthought, and they define the framework and limits within which politics and policymaking transpire at any particular level of governance. This holds true throughout every level of governance – from local to international. The objective of this paper is to further elucidate this reality through a twofold approach:

1. By first considering a tabula rasa state of reference devoid of legal structure or rule, which will illuminate the symbiotic relationship between politics and law, as well as how politics and policymaking would cease to even hold meaning without the presence of law, and then

2. By moving from the tabula rasa and considering a case history approach to illustrate the creation of a particular legal structure and how it now impacts politics and policymaking at the highest, most encompassing and abstruse scale – that of international public law.

Keywords: law and policy, law and public policy, public policy, political thought, public international law, environmental international law, climate change regime, Kyoto Protocol, law and politics, legal institutions, network theory

JEL Classification: K32, K33

Suggested Citation

Goldstein, Evan, Law Shapes Politics: How Legal Structure Influences Political Discourse and Policymaking at All Levels of Governance (October 23, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2514055 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2514055

Evan Goldstein (Contact Author)

University of Cambridge ( email )

Trinity Ln
Cambridge, CB2 1TN
United Kingdom

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