A better world through law? The implications of the theories of Niklas Luhmann for green economics
This paper considers the implications of the theories of Niklas Luhmann for attempts at achieving social change through law. According to Luhmann, modern society consists of all that can be communicated and understood as having meaning. Such communications are structured according to functionally differentiated subsystems such as law, politics, science, economics and education. Luhmann applies the biological term, 'autopoiesis', to explain how social systems produce and reproduce themselves by the interaction of their own elements and in so doing, participate in society's construction of reality. Each system distinguishes itself from its environment through binary codes and then reconstitutes phenomena entering its environment by applying its own internal binary code (such as legal/illegal in the case of law). This normative closure means that direct or simple exchanges or communications between social systems, or between individuals and social systems, are impossible. We therefore need to abandon notions of 'steering' social systems in predetermined ways and bringing about social change directly through legal norms. Progressive change may occur but this will depend more on how events entering each social system are reconstituted by those systems, rather than on the motivation and planning of social campaigners. Luhmann offers a way of describing society that seeks to engage with, rather than avoid, the increasing complexity and contingency of modern society, and which enables us to see that whether law achieves 'justice' depends on the viewpoint from which law (or any other social system) is being observed.
Beyond Procedural Legitimation: Legality and Its ‘Infictions’
The legitimacy of a legal and political order is a challenging modern legal, philosophical, and sociological problem. It has many practical aspects and consequences for social, political, and legal activity. Its importance increases especially during times of complex socio-political and legal changes or reconstruction.' The relation between legality and legitimacy was an important topic for legal philosophy and sociology in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, Max Weber classified legal political domination as a domination legitimated by general legal rules, rational administration, and bureaucratic procedures.2 Another German scholar, Carl Schmitt, worked on the principle of formal or technical legality and its power to legitimate political authority.3 Schmitt reduced conditions of legitimacy to the legal exercise of political power and, according to him, legality is the justification of the state.4 The topic of the legitimacy of law also appears, though only as a marginal problem, in the pure theory of law developed by Hans Kelsen. Hans Kelsen, and most legal positivists, define the legitimacy of a legal rule in two ways: formally, as a fact that a rule has been issued by the legally empowered body or, substantively, legitimacy is identified with the efficacy of a legal rule within the system of positive law and society itself.5 Joseph Raz's book, The Authority of Law, in which the author attempted to harmonize a formal legalist approach with substantive political and moral principles, does not break this positivistic framework in spite of the fact that Raz has greater respect for the interdependence of law and political or moral principles.6 Analytical jurisprudence, even after the fundamental innovations brought about by H.L.A. Hart or, more recently, by Joseph Raz, still builds on
Evaluation and Control of Collapsible Soils
Some compacted soils wetted under certain conditions of compaction and loading may exhibit additional settlement (collapse). To investigate the effect of the soil type, compaction water content, initial dry unit weight and applied pressure at wetting on collapse potential, 138 single‐oedometer tests were conducted on eight different soils. The results indicate that well‐graded soils tend to collapse more than poorly graded ones under similar conditions. Furthermore, collapse potential decreases with an increase in (1) The difference between the sand and clay percentages; (2) compaction water content; and (3) initial dry unit weight, while it increases with pressure at wetting. A multiple regression analysis was performed on the laboratory results to provide a collapse‐predictive model that was substantiated by data reported by several researchers. A chart is presented to estimate (1) The collapse potential of soils under various conditions; and (2) the critical water content beyond which no collapse is ex...