JJUB55141U Law in (Political) Context: An Introduction to contemporary Law & Politics approaches

The goal of this course is to provide bachellor students with an interdisciplinary perspectives to the explore the law-politics interface. The course connects what the students already know about legal studies in comparative law and legal institutions with the most recent developments from the political science disipline, by offering new insights about how law is deeply intertwined with the democratic political process and society. Specifically, the course deepens students’ knowledge on legal institutions by adding a political perspective to their current legal approach. This knowledge complements and creates synergies with other legal (e.g. constitutional law, administrative law, comparative and international law) and interdisciplinary perspectives offered in their legal studies in the Faculty in philosophy, sociology, anthropology and history.

This course enables students to critically discuss how law shapes political institutions, and vice versa. In this sense, during the course students will discuss the limitations and opportunities provided by combining political and legal perspectives. Reflecting on this complementarity will give students an added value that will improve their careers prospects as researchers, lawyers, judges, civil servants, etc., and, not least, their capacity to assess their political reality as citizens. All in all, by integrating knowledge and hands-on practice in law and politics, students will develop a deep understanding of the dynamics that rule the relations between these two disciplines, empowering them to become agents of legal change within the Danish society.

Therefore, the seminar will state how interdisciplinary law and politics approaches might help legal students and professionals in understanding challenges by focusing the discussion in diverse contemporary legal and political issues. Accordingly, the course will expose students to the basic literature and debates on comparative politics and law to provide context that enables the them to discuss core questions such as: Should lawyers care about the role of politics? To what extent is the law rooted in politics? How does the rule of law emerge? What kinds of political and social interests are reflected in the law? Under what conditions could the law limit the behaviour of politicians? Are these conditions the same under democratic and authoritarian regimes? All these topics will be discussed actively by the students using empirical evidence about the functioning and configuration of legal regimes and judicial institutions.

The course is divided into two parts; The first part introduces the students to the relevant approaches, concepts and methods for studying and understanding the interaction between law and politics (sessions 1, 2 and 3). These three sessions provide the students with the analytical and methodological tools to follow and develop discussions on legal issues in the framework of a broader political context. The second part of the course reviews the main questions and topics addressed by the literature in Law and Politics (sessions 4 to 12). The study of the syllabus’ topics is done by applying the analytical concepts and research tools showed in the first three
sessions. During the first sessions, students will be asked about their motivations and professional interest in order to identify topics of their interest for their assignments.