When law stops speaking as law
This article theorizes a neglected mode of legal collapse in which law continues to function institutionally but loses its capacity to operate as law. Courts issue judgments, statutes remain in force, and administrative bodies act under established procedures, yet legal pronouncements cease to be tr...
保存先:
| 出版年: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/revus, |
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| 主要な著者: | , |
| フォーマット: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 言語: | Anglais |
| 出版事項: |
Revus
2026
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| 主題: | |
| オンライン･アクセス: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| 要約: | This article theorizes a neglected mode of legal collapse in which law continues to function institutionally but loses its capacity to operate as law. Courts issue judgments, statutes remain in force, and administrative bodies act under established procedures, yet legal pronouncements cease to be treated as authoritative reasons for action, instead functioning as threats, predictions, partisan signals, or empty rituals. Drawing on examples from late communist legal systems and contemporary populist or illiberal regimes, we argue that this phenomenon cannot be fully explained by Hart’s classical account, which focuses on inefficacy or the disintegration of the rule of recognition. Using a Stalnaker-inspired pragmatic framework, we propose a third, non-Hartian form of collapse: normative collapse without institutional failure. Central to this account is the Acceptance Ground—the shared presuppositional background that allows legal utterances to function as authoritative, reason-giving acts. Unlike classical disobedience, compliance may continue; unlike rule-of-recognition failure, formal structures remain intact. What collapses is the mutual recognition that gives law its normative force: law persists institutionally, but its authority evaporates. The article also introduces pluralistic ignorance to describe an intermediate stage in the erosion of the Acceptance Ground. By highlighting this nuanced form of legal failure, the study offers a novel conceptual tool for diagnosing legal decay in contemporary constitutional orders. |
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