Cart

Unlocking potential with the best learning and research solutions

Look Inside Political Trials in Theory and History

Political Trials in Theory and History

Name: Political Trials in Theory and History
Price: 46.99 USD
Availability: LimitedAvailability
ISBN: 9781108110389

$46.99 USD

Editors:
Jens Meierhenrich, London School of Economics
Devin O. Pendas, Boston College, Massachusetts

Jens Meierhenrich, Devin O. Pendas, Josiah Ober, Ron E. Hassner, Kenneth Sexauer, Thomas A. Fudge, Laurence Winnie, Francine Hirsch, Mark Tushnet, Catherine M. Cole, Alexander C. Cook, Marco Jacquemet, Christiane Wilke, William H. Page, John E. Lopatka, Richard Sakwa, Lawrence Douglas

View all contributors

Date Published: February 2017
availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
format: Adobe eBook Reader
isbn: 9781108110389

Find out more about Cambridge eBooks

Rate & review

$ 46.99 USD
Adobe eBook Reader

You will be taken to ebooks.com for this purchase

Buy eBook Add to wishlist

Other available formats:
Hardback, Paperback

Looking for an inspection copy?

This title is not currently available on inspection

Description

Contents

Resources

Courses

About the Authors

From the trial of Socrates to the post-9/11 military commissions, trials have always been useful instruments of politics. Yet there is still much that we do not understand about them. Why do governments use trials to pursue political objectives, and when? What differentiates political trials from ordinary ones? Contrary to conventional wisdom, not all political trials are show trials or contrive to set up scapegoats. This volume offers a novel account of political trials that is empirically rigorous and theoretically sophisticated, linking state-of-the-art research on telling cases to a broad argument about political trials as a socio-legal phenomenon. All the contributors analyse the logic of the political in the courtroom. From archival research to participant observation, and from linguistic anthropology to game theory, the volume offers a genuinely interdisciplinary set of approaches that substantially advance existing knowledge about what political trials are, how they work, and why they matter.
- Offers an account of political trials that is both empirically rigorous and theoretically sophisticated
- Advances an interdisciplinary approach to the study of political trials
- Embraces diverse methodological approaches, from archival research to linguistic anthropology to game theory
Read more
Reviews & endorsements
'This is a remarkable book. Meierhenrich and Pendas have assembled a wonderful and coherent collection. They offer a new understanding of political trials, one which illuminates both the juridical dimensions of political life and the way political meanings shape courts and trials. Broad in its historical and cultural sweep, impressive in its scholarship, uniformly persuasive, Political Trials in Theory and History will quickly become a must-read among students of law and politics.' Austin Sarat, Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College, Massachusetts
'All trials are political. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don't. This collection is a marvelous exploration of that often forgotten fact, demonstrating to us the need to be able to appraise the uses of the criminal law and legal process for many kinds of political ends, some of which we have reason to agree with, while others can only appear as highly dubious. This is an intelligent and timely intervention in a field too often shrouded in technicalities.' Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights
'Criminal trials are fascinating, as Hollywood learned long ago. Political trials are even better: the stakes are higher; the participants loom larger. These fourteen case studies of major trials, organized in accordance with a framework that the editors provide, are genuinely illuminating and wonderfully engaging.' Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, New Jersey
'Political trials in theory and history shows that, in too many trials, it is very difficult to separate the administration of justice from explicit or, more often, implicit political goals. The book makes two key contributions to the understanding of political trials. The first comes from a rather dense, though well-articulated, introductory chapter from the editors. The second is a list of inspiring case-studies devoted to 14 trials held across 25 centuries, from Socrates to Guantánamo Bay.' Daniele Archibugi, International Affairs
See more reviews
Customer reviews

Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review

Log in to review

Review was not posted due to profanity
×

, create a review

(If you're not , sign out)

Please enter the right captcha value

Please enter a star rating.

Your review must be a minimum of 12 words.

How do you rate this item?

Reviews must contain at least 12 words about the product.

×

Product details
- Date Published: February 2017
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781108110389
- contains: 6 b/w illus.
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
1. Political trials in theory and history Jens Meierhenrich and Devin O. Pendas
2. The trial of Socrates as a political trial: explaining 399 BCE Josiah Ober
3. The trial and crucifixion of Jesus: a formal model Ron E. Hassner and Kenneth Sexauer
4. Jan Hus in the medieval ecclesiastical courts Thomas A. Fudge
5. The French Revolutionary trials Laurence Winnie
6. The Soviet Union, the Nuremberg Trials, and the politics of the postwar moment Francine Hirsch
7. 'Brown v. Board of Education': private civil litigation as a political trial Mark Tushnet
8. The Eichmann trial in law and memory Devin O. Pendas
9. In the theater of the rule of law: performing the Rivonia trial in South Africa, 1963–4 Jens Meierhenrich and Catherine M. Cole
10. China's Gang of Four trial: the law v. the laws of history Alexander C. Cook
11. Anger, honor, and truth: the political prosecution of Neopolitan organized crime Marco Jacquemet
12. 'This following orders thing is very relative': ascriptions and performances of responsibility in the Causa ESMA, 1983–7 Christiane Wilke
13. The Microsoft case as a political trial William H. Page and John E. Lopatka
14. The trials of Khodorkovsky in Russia Richard Sakwa
15. Nashiri in Gitmo: the wages of legitimacy in trials before the Guantanamo Military Commissions Lawrence Douglas.
Look Inside
Editors
Jens Meierhenrich, London School of Economics
Jens Meierhenrich is Associate Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books include The Legacies of Law: Long-Run Consequences of Legal Development in South Africa, 1652–2000 (Cambridge, 2008), which won the American Political Science Association's 2009 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book on politics, government, or international affairs, Lawfare: Gacaca Jurisdictions, 1994–2010 (Cambridge, forthcoming), and, as co-editor, The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt (2016).
Devin O. Pendas, Boston College, Massachusetts
Devin O. Pendas is Associate Professor of History at Boston College, Massachusetts. He is the author of The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965: History, Genocide, and the Limits of the Law (Cambridge, 2006) and the co-editor of Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany (with Mark Roseman and Richard F. Wetzell, Cambridge, 2018).
Contributors
Jens Meierhenrich, Devin O. Pendas, Josiah Ober, Ron E. Hassner, Kenneth Sexauer, Thomas A. Fudge, Laurence Winnie, Francine Hirsch, Mark Tushnet, Catherine M. Cole, Alexander C. Cook, Marco Jacquemet, Christiane Wilke, William H. Page, John E. Lopatka, Richard Sakwa, Lawrence Douglas