Polycentricity

If the European welfare state and, consequently, modern legal thinking are in a state of crisis, the possibility of changing this reality or the theories constructing and explaining it must be considered. This book demonstrates the inadequacy of current legal paradigms in explaining the phenomena of fragmentation through conceptions of modern law: neither law nor justice are structured around a centre in relation to which all legal and ethical norms could be founded. The book does not merely map the fragmentations and indeterminacies of modern law and legal theory. It also addresses the possibility of legal and ethical alternatives and political counterstrategies. The concepts of law and justice are questioned from epistemological, political and ethical perspectives: how is legal interpretation to be understood?; what problems does representation in law imply?; does jurisprudence understand itself?; what comes after the deconstruction of law?; what are the relationships between law, justice and politics?; is legal polycentricity an ethical demand?; and what does law have to do with a rainbow?
The book is devoted to the philosophical investigation of the phenomena of law and justice. Instead of offering a new critical legal theory, it offers openings to polycentric legal theories by both deconstructing the idea of unity in law and re-constructing ethical differences. Multiplicity itself is the main subject of polycentric law and this polycentric book.