CONFERENCE: THE LAW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY - TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE FUNCTIONS OF LAW (original) (raw)

Theme and Purpose: The centrality of law for the study of political economy was widely recognized at the time of the emergence of the political economy discipline in the 18th century as well as throughout the 19th century. From the outset law was considered an essential component of political economy studies because social phenomena such as capital, labor and power gain their form and basic characteristics from their status as legal institutions. Since then the economic discipline has however increasingly detached itself from neighboring disciplines leaving political economy to economic sociology and political science at the same time as these disciplines increasingly has underplayed the centrality of law in relation to their assessment of political economy institutions. On this background, the conference aims in general terms to reinvigorate the focus on law and reassessing the role of law in political economy contexts. More specifically it aims to increase our theoretical understanding of the function law fulfills between economy and politics and to historically assess the evolution of law and legal thinking in relation to the issue of how law contributes to the stabilization of economic and political processes at the local, national and transnational level of world society.