THEORIZING THE DIFFUSION OF LAW IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION: CONCEPTUAL DIFFICULTIES, UNSTABLE IMAGINATIONS, AND THE EFFORT TO THINK GRACEFULLY NONETHELESS
THEORIZING THE DIFFUSION OF LAW IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION: CONCEPTUAL DIFFICULTIES, UNSTABLE IMAGINATIONS, AND THE EFFORT TO THINK GRACEFULLY NONETHELESS

Summary/Abstract: Coming to grips with the diffusion of law in an age of globalization requires multiple, rather incommensurate, imaginations of authority. In trying to understand present situations, and heroically presuming the adequacy of raw knowledge, the legal theorist must think from more than one stance, must adopt multiple imaginations. So most of us shift from one imagination to another, trying to make sense of the matter at hand. If we were to take the admittedly risky step of acknowledging that our thinking is polyphonic, that we dance among our incommensurate imaginations of the diffusion of law, and of globalization more generally, then the criterion of approval for social theory would not be descriptive completeness or even impeccable demonstration. Instead we should strive for a certain human gracefulness of response to the world in which we find ourselves.

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