Law, Public Policies and Complex Systems: Networks in Action

This book investigates how various scientific communities – e.g. legal scientists, political scientists, sociologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists – study law and public policies, which are portrayed here as complex systems. Today, research on law and public policies is rapidly developing at the international level, relying heavily on modeling that employs innovative methods for concrete implementation.

Among the subject matter discussed, law as a network of evolving and interactive norms is now a prominent sphere of study. Similarly, public policies are now a topic in their own right, as policy can no longer be examined as a linear process; rather, its study should reflect the complexity of the networks of actors, norms and resources involved, as well as the uncertainty or weak predictability of their direct or indirect impacts.

The book is divided into three maain parts: complexity faced by jurists, complexity in action and public policies, andcomplexity and networks. The main themes examined concern codification, governance, climate change, normative networks, health, water management, use-related conflicts, legal regime conflicts, and the use of indicators.

Romain Boulet is Doctor in mathematics and associate professor at the iaelyon School of Management and is a member of the Magellan Research Center in Lyon, France. His research areas include graph theory (especially algebraic graph theory) and network analysis, with a particular interest in interdisciplinary collaboration. He has focused on the analysis of legal networks and organized workshops on complexity and public policy. 

Claire Lajaunie is Doctor of Law, HDR-accreditation to supervise research- (Aix-Marseille University, France). Researcher at Inserm, she is a Board Member of the International Multidisciplinary Thematic Network "Biodiversity, Health and Societies in Southeast Asia" (Thailand). She is working on Global Environmental Law and public policies, their links with regulation regarding health (infectious diseases) and ethical issues. She is currently involved in research projects focusing on Southeast Asia and she is particularly interested in the relationship between environmental law, ecology and rural development. She is also Affiliate Researcherat the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow,Scotland. 

Pierre Mazzega is Doctor in earth observation from space, Engineer in geophysics, HDR-accreditation to supervise research- (Toulouse University, France). Senior scientist at CNRS in the Geosciences Environment Toulouse lab (France), he is developing research on the  modelling of environmental Law, policy and governance complex systems, and in the nonlinear (in situ & remote sensing; quantitative and qualitative) data analysis and assimilation in models. He is also Affiliate Researcher the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.