Law at the Age of Emotional Capitalism, K-pop, and Taylor Swift: A Comparative Analysis between the USA and East Asia

Abstract

This present study embarks on the interrelation between Law and Eva Illouz's theory of Emotional Capitalism. Based on a conceptional framework of the most prominent associated fields, it examines whether individual artists, such as Taylor Swift or K-Pop can actively affect legal cultures, given their tremendous impact on other cultural fields, namely the economy, as capitalist agents, and the arts, as artistic 'entities'. Upon these observations, it further argues that emotional capitalism plays an integral part in shaping (normative) legal cultures and confirms these arguments by a comparative analysis between the external and internal legal cultures of USA and East Asia.