Originally from Havre, Montana, I’m now a Reader in International Politics at the City University of London and a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics. I’ve long been fascinated by how legal orders are created, contested, and transformed across time and space. Before becoming an academic, I worked as an international development professional in several countries, including Afghanistan, Nepal, and Timor-Leste. I earned a PhD in International Relations from Oxford University, a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School, an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queen’s University Belfast as a Mitchell Scholar, and a BA from Grinnell College.
I wrote...
Contending Orders: Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law
Worldwide, most legal disputes are handled by justice systems rooted in custom or tradition. Legal pluralism, where state courts and non-state authorities exist alongside each other, is the norm, not the exception. So, how does legal pluralism impact efforts to establish the rule of law? What’s the best way to navigate such settings?
My book shows that engagement with non-state justice systems is vital to the success or failure of efforts to establish the rule of law. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, first-hand policy reports, and case studies from Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, the book offers theoretical and practical insights to better understand and approach advancing democracy and the rule of law wherever legal pluralism thrives.
Short and accessible, this is a book that I consistently return to when considering how the rule of law has been understood in different places and times from Ancient Greece through the Medieval World to today.
In my view, there simply isn’t a better starting point for understanding what the rule of law means and why it is so contested. At the same time, Tamanaha shows why the rule of law remains both a useful concept and an ideal worth aspiring to. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the rule of law and its complexities.
The rule of law is the most important political ideal today, yet there is much confusion about what it means and how it works. This 2004 book explores the history, politics, and theory surrounding the rule of law ideal, beginning with classical Greek and Roman ideas, elaborating on medieval contributions to the rule of law, and articulating the role played by the rule of law in liberal theory and liberal political systems. The author outlines the concerns of Western conservatives about the decline of the rule of law and suggests reasons why the radical Left have promoted this decline. Two…
My first job after university was as a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where I worked on the Democracy and Rule of Law Project, headed by Tom Carothers. It was there that I first read Promoting Democracy Abroad.
Over two decades later, I still find myself returning to this book for its insightful and systematic assessment of the opportunities and challenges facing international actors who seek to promote the rule of law and democracy.
Aid to promote democracy abroad has emerged as a major growth industry in recent years. Not only the United States but many other Western countries, international institutions, and private foundations today use aid to support democratic transitions in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Though extensive in scope, these activities remain little understood outside the realm of specialists. Debates among policymakers over democracy promotion oscillate between unhelpful poles of extreme skepticism and unrealistic boosterism, while the vast majority of citizens in aid-providing countries have little awareness of the democracy-building efforts their governments…
Few places face a more dire need for the rule of law than states prone to conflict. These are almost invariably some of the trickiest places to actually promote the rule of law. At the same time, post-conflict states offer opportunities rarely found in more stable political environments.
I first reviewedthis book for the Stanford Journal of International Law back in 2007, and it has consistently repaid rereading ever since. It shows the good, the bad, and the ugly about international attempts to promote the rule of law after conflict. It is a great book for anyone who wants to understand what has been done in the past, why efforts so often disappoint, and how future activities might be improved.
This book looks at why it's so difficult to create 'the rule of law' in post-conflict societies such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and offers critical insights into how policy-makers and field-workers can improve future rule of law efforts. A must-read for policy-makers, field-workers, journalists and students trying to make sense of the international community's problems in Iraq and elsewhere, this book shows how a narrow focus on building institutions such as courts and legislatures misses the more complex cultural issues that affect societal commitment to the values associated with the rule of law. The authors place the rule of law…
This book helped spark my own interest in the relationship between legal pluralism and the rule of law. Despite decades of transnational legal support for the rule of law, scholars and practitioners alike have overwhelmingly focused on state courts. Isser’s edited volume is an early and enduring corrective to that trend.
This highly accessible book offers an invaluable primer for understanding a wide range of customary legal systems, how external actors have approached these authorities, and how non-state justice can influence the development of the rule of law.
The major peacekeeping and stability operations of the last ten years have mostly taken place in countries that have pervasive customary justice systems, which pose significant challenges and opportunities for efforts to reestablish the rule of law. These systems are the primary, if not sole, means of dispute resolution for the majority of the population, but post-conflict practitioners and policymakers often focus primarily on constructing formal justice institutions in the Western image, as opposed to engaging existing traditional mechanisms. This book offers insight into how the rule of law community might make the leap beyond rhetorical recognition of customary justice…
The rule of law often equates with peace at home and peaceful relations abroad. Yet, as Caplan shows, peace–and determining when we can confidently say peace prevails–is far from obvious. Measuring Peace clarifies the pitfalls and opportunities of peacebuilding.
The book shows why peace is often difficult to maintain but never loses sight of why it is such an important goal–both for society as a whole and as a foundation for the rule of law.
How can we know if the peace that has been established following a civil war is a stable peace? More than half of all countries that experienced civil war since World War II have suffered a relapse into violent conflict, in some cases more than once. Meanwhile the international community expends billions of dollars and deploys tens of thousands of personnel each year in support of efforts to build peace in countries emerging from violent conflict.
This book argues that efforts to build peace are hampered by the lack of effective means of assessing progress towards the achievement of a…
I'm the oldest granddaughter of Leora, who lost three sons during WWII. To learn what happened to them, I studied casualty and missing aircraft reports, missions reports, and read unit histories. I’ve corresponded with veterans who knew one of the brothers, who witnessed the bomber hit the water off New Guinea, and who accompanied one brother’s body home. I’m still in contact with the family members of two crew members on the bomber. The companion book, Leora’s Letters, is the family story of the five Wilson brothers who served, but only two came home.
The day the second atomic bomb was dropped, Clabe and Leora Wilson’s postman brought a telegram to their acreage near Perry, Iowa. One son was already in the U.S. Navy before Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Four more sons worked with their father, tenant farmers near Minburn until, one by one; all five sons were serving their country in the military–two in the Navy and three as Army Air Force pilots.
Only two sons came home.
Leora’s Letters is the compelling true account of a woman whose most tender hopes were disrupted by great losses. Yet she lived out four…
The day the second atomic bomb was dropped, Clabe and Leora Wilson’s postman brought a telegram to their acreage near Perry, Iowa. One son was already in the U.S. Navy before Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Four more sons worked with their father, tenant farmers near Minburn until, one by one, all five sons were serving their country in the military. The oldest son re-enlisted in the Navy. The younger three became U.S. Army Air Force pilots. As the family optimist, Leora wrote hundreds of letters, among all her regular chores, dispensing news and keeping up the morale of the…
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