The Unsteady State: General Jurisprudence for Dynamic Social Phenomena

Analytical jurisprudence often proceeds with two key assumptions: that all law is either contained in or traceable back to an authorizing law-state, and that states are stable and in full control of the borders of their legal systems. What would a general theory of law be like and do if these long-standing presumptions were loosened? The Unsteady State aims to assess the possibilities by enacting a relational approach to explanation of law, exploring law's relations to the environment, security, and technology. The account provided here offers a rich and renewed perspective on the preconditions and continuity of legal order in systemic and non-systemic forms, and further supports the view that the state remains prominent yet is now less dominant in the normative lives of norm-subjects and as an object of legal theory.

Keith Culver is Professor and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Management, University of British Columbia, Canada. His research focuses on the intersection of sustainability, jurisprudence and knowledge mobilization for innovation.

Michael Giudice is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University, Toronto. His research focuses on the philosophy of law and associated areas in political and moral philosophy.