Our ideas are largely dependent on the events of our lives and on the history of our existence. Every thought, Nietzsche said, is the confession of a body, the autobiography of a living being. This book is no exception to this assertion. The ideas of law and politics that I present here are, mainly, the product of the life I have lived, first as a student in Latin America and Belgium, then as a professor at various universities and research centers in France, the United States, and Latin America.
The contrasting populations, histories, cultures, and political struggles of the countries where I have lived have shaped my own conceptions of law and its relation to political power. My academic experience in such different countries has allowed me to see how dependent legal thought is on the national setting and, from this evidence, how doubtful the idea of the political neutrality of law is.
Nonetheless, this experience also showed me that we should not dissolve legal thinking into the social and political reality of each country. The law is not only a system of ideas built by the tools of a technical rationality (the science of law) but also the result of the political and cultural relations underlying such rationality.
This book would not have been possible without the help and support of many colleagues and friends. I would first like to extend my thanks to Jacques Commaille, who asked me to write this book in 2010, when I was doing research in France, and who has honored me with his friendship and advice throughout most of my academic career. I also wish to thank Liora Israël, who patiently read the first draft of the French version of this book and gave me important critical feedback. I thank Aude Lejeune, who commented on the first version of this book and coauthored an early version of Chapter 5.
I wrote a good portion of this volume during my stays at the University of Grenoble in France. These visits were made possible thanks to several invitations from the Centre d´Etudes et de Recherches sur le Droit, l´Histoire et l´Administration Publique (CERDHAP), and the Institut d`Etudes Politiques (IEP) over the last decade. Jean-Charles Froment, who directed these institutions at various times in recent years, invited me to teach comparative sociology of law and provided me with valuable advice and friendship.
This book is a shortened and revised version of a book published in France in 2015 under the title Les pouvoirs du droit. I want to thank Morgan Stoffregen who reviewed the English version and María Adelaida Ceballos who reviewed the final version of the manuscript.
Many colleagues and friends in France, the United States, and Latin America have read and commented on one or more chapters. I apologize in advance to those who are the victims of my bad memory. In Europe, I thank André-Jean Arnaud (who passed away in December 2015), Wanda Capeller, Laurence Dumoulin, Cécile Vigour, Antoine Vauchez, Martin Kaluszynski, Claire Galembert, Nicolas Kada, Pierre Mura, Marcel Tercinet, Michel Carraud, Carlos Miguel Herrera, Jean-François Davignon, Jérôme Pelisse, Céline Torrisi, and Diana Villegas. I also thank my friends Monique Perriaux, Florence Perriaux, and François Marie Delhaye, all of whom took me in at different times during my stays in Europe. In addition, Marie Delhaye read and edited the final manuscript of the French version of this book.
In the United States, where I did an essential part of the research, I wish to thank several colleagues. Howard Erlanger, director of the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School, welcomed me several times as a visiting professor. I am also deeply grateful to Professors Gay Seidman and Joe Thome, who were always willing to advise me and lend a hand whenever I needed. Particular thanks are due to the Tinker Foundation for extending me two invitations, in 2004 and 2008, to serve as a visiting professor. This latest invitation allowed me to complete much of the manuscript. During my stay at the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I received valuable comments from my colleagues Ivan Ermakoff, Heinz Klug, Joe Conti, Sida Liu, Erik Olin Wright, Francisco Serrano, Elizabeth Mertz, Alexandra Huneeus, and Joe Thome, as well as my friends Lisa Mackinnon and Eric Rambo, to whom I dedicate this book. I had the opportunity to discuss some of the ideas in this book, particularly those related to the Law and Society, with Susan Silbey, during various meetings in Paris, thanks to invitations by Liora Israël and Jacques Commaille. Her advice and comments were very helpful to me.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to members of LACIS (the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program), particularly its director, Francisco Scarano, and its associate director, Alberto Vargas, for their encouragement. LACIS also funded the English translation of most of the chapters of this book, which were used in my seminar.
In Latin America, I would like to thank Carlos Mario Perea and Fabio López de la Roche, both directors of IEPRI (the Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales) at the National University of Colombia, and Rodrigo Uprimny, director of the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society–Dejusticia, for facilitating my frequent international trips to Madison and Grenoble. I also thank my friends and colleagues César Rodríguez, Fernando Escalante, José Reinaldo de Lima Lopes, Néstor Raúl Correa, José Rafael Espinosa, Helena Alviar, María Adelaida Ceballos, Julieta Lemaitre, Javier Revelo, Catalina Pérez, René de la Vega, Rodolfo Vázquez, Martin Böhmer, Roberto Gargarella, Juan Carlos Henao, Oscar Vilhena, Catalina Botero, María Paula Saffón, Camilo Sánchez, Carolina Villadiego, Nicolás Torres, Alejandro Cortés, Antanas Mockus, Gabriela Vargas, and Vivian Newman.
Finally, without the support of my family – Ángela, Julia, and Emilio – none of the personal biography that allowed me to write this book would have been possible.
