Paradigms of Penal Law
Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (Dubber & Hörnle eds., 2014)
18 Pages Posted: 6 Jan 2014 Last revised: 22 May 2014
Date Written: January 6, 2014
Abstract
Placing law in context makes its critical analysis possible, by elucidating the cluster of norms, practices, and institutions under investigation (thereby facilitating analysis) and by taking up vantage points from which the newly illuminated object of inquiry can be assessed (in this way making critique possible). This paper contextualizes criminal law, not through doctrinal comparison or by adjusting one’s disciplinary point of view, but by locating it within the conception and actuality of state power, thereby facilitating its critical analysis as an exercise of the state’s penal power, i.e., as state penal action.
Keywords: criminal law, criminal law theory, criminal law history, comparative criminal law, political theory, police power
JEL Classification: K14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation