Recent actions by the European Union reveal a shift away from traditional, topdown, command and control governance. This can be seen in the structure of traditional tools like directives, as many recent directives, especially in social policymaking, tend to be more open and flexible. But the...

Much recent research in political economy has focused on how globalization might affect the politics of institutional and policy choice. Research examining whether globalization will contribute to convergence of national institutional arrangements or policies is the preeminent example. In this...

Globalization is rapidly changing the landscape of law practice in China, especially its corporate legal sector. This article reports on the preliminary findings of the China research of the Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (GLEE) Project, a comparative study that examines how...

The study of the relationship between law and economic development goes back at least to the nineteenth century. It is a question that attracted the attention of classical thinkers like Marx and Weber. And there were some early efforts to craft policy in this area; for example, under the Raj, some...

Law and development refers both to organized efforts to transform legal systems in developing countries to foster economic, political and social development and to the academic projects stimulated by these efforts. Begun in the mid-20th century, law and development's dominant ideas and projects...

This article explores the emergence of a new developmental state in Brazil and its significance for law and development theory. Emerging forms of state activism in Brazil since 2000, including a new industrial policy and a robust social policy, differ from both classic developmental state and...

Many in the field of development studies have embraced the method of horizontal learning among peer developing countries as a useful tool to identify practices that might help solve development problems. While this “scan globally, reinvent locally” approach has been tried in the field of law...

Noting that 2014 is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Scholars in Self-Estrangement, the author looks at the field of law and development during these four decades. In a preliminary report, he reviews the critique outlined in Scholars and the claim that its publication killed the field...

World trade and investment law is in crisis: new and progressive ideas are needed. Rules that facilitated globalization and supported global economic growth are being challenged. A system of global governance that once seemed secure is now at risk as the US ignores the rules while developing...

The debate over the Open Method of Co-ordination has reopened discussion of the role of 'soft law' in the process of European integration. This paper outlines the debate over the relative value of hard and soft law in EU social policy, explores the operation of non-binding objectives and...