Judges under stress: Legal complexes and a sociology of hope

How does the sociology of legal complexes contribute to understanding of judges under stress in the shaping of legal-liberal political orders? First, the article proposes six distinctive meanings of judges and judiciaries. Second, it identifies stressors that erode the legitimacy and efficacy of dif...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Terence Halliday
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2025-04-01
Series:Oñati Socio-Legal Series
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Online Access:https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1895
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Summary:How does the sociology of legal complexes contribute to understanding of judges under stress in the shaping of legal-liberal political orders? First, the article proposes six distinctive meanings of judges and judiciaries. Second, it identifies stressors that erode the legitimacy and efficacy of different categories of judges. Third, illustrated by scholarship on Egypt, Pakistan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, it proposes that a theory of domestic and international legal complexes sharpens explanations of robustness of judges’ ability to cope with stress. Fourth, it argues that evidence on legal complexes can move scholarship on judges under stress from static frameworks of social structures to the dynamics of a sociology of hope where structural resourcefulness and repertoires of action multiple the opportunities for resisting stress. Fifth, after identifying contingencies that can relieve stress on judges and judiciaries, the paper concludes points to a redemptive irony of repression by authoritarian rulers.
ISSN:2079-5971