Chapter One Keywords

*friends versus enemies (Schmitt)

politics is fundamentally defined by the existential distinction between friend (in-group) and enemy (out-group)

*Grundnorm

norms above norms

*bare life (Agamben)

mere life

*the ought (morality)

moral obligation (used in context of no need to be moral in bare life)

*the state

an organized system of government, which claims control of a territory and enforces laws or statutes through the specialized work of a constabulary force

*Hammurabi’s Code

Hammurabi, the king of Babylonia, had a code consisting of about 250 laws covering all manner of public, private, and criminal activity, with the most development in the area of sexual behavior.

*imperatively-coordinated associations

ICAs go beyond the utilization of mere power toward the institutionalization of a set of cultural ideals, role relations, and social structures which endow the leader and functionaries of the ICA with legitimacy. It fits the criterion of a legal system when it is political and not hierocratic.

*Natural law

developed to solve the dilemma of a political/legal power imbalance and the question of how to hold the powerful accountable to the citizens

legal organization is natural to the extent that morality emerges as a universal feature of any human social organization

applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal (Cicero)

fueled ideology of the “divine right of kings”

*separation of powers

to guard against an amassing of power, the ideal government should be characterized by a balance of power distributed across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

*positivist paradigm

Regarding to the emerging study of sociology, the use of systematic observation utilizing the methods of the natural sciences to explain social phenomena

• concerned with the “what is” and believes in objective knowledge

• casual analysis through quantitative methods

• universal covering laws

• observable phenomena

• behaviorism, functionalism, biological, ecological, mathematical approaches

*interpretive paradigm

Regarding the study of sociology, took into account the importance of feelings, emotions, and the sense of self that human beings (ideally) develop in their interactions with others

• requires different theories and methods than natural sciences

• “what is” but with less faith in the ability to be completely reserved

• understanding - verstehen

• objective and subjective concepts

• quantitative methods preferred

*evaluative paradigm

• The unity of theory and practice, with practice informed by an explicit normative, ideological, or nonscientific agenda

• more concerned with “what ought to be” over “what is”

• versions of humanitarian reform theory

• identification and amelioration of oppressive social conditions, especially those that produce inequality

• rejection of value-free knowledge

• feminist theory, critical race theory

*constitutional neglect

Political actors do not regard constitutional principles as a high priority (i.e. giving in to demands of interest groups or acting on the basis of short-term interests)

*originalism

interpreters of the constitution believe judges should merely interpret the law

*contextualism

view the constitution as a living document and seek to have judges take a more active role in interpreting laws AND administering justice