缅北禁地

Law, Politics, and the American Century

In 1941, as the USA stood on the cusp of entry into World War Two, Henry Luce (the proprietor of Time and Life magazines) sounded reveille for what he called the ‘American Century’. Luce sought to alert his compatriots to a world in which the USA, as a global hegemon, would promote freedom and democracy and encourage adherence to the rule of law. Over eighty years after Luce made his grand pronouncement, the ideals on which he placed emphasis, and the state that he assumed would promote them, have a tarnished appearance. This paper probes understandings of law and politics as they have developed in the USA over the last eighty-five years. It then uses an analysis of the American Century offered by Harold Evans to identify a cluster of ideas with enduring significance and that Luce would recognise as constituents of the context he sought to describe. This paper then goes on to argue that these ideas are open to arrangement in ways that support two very different understandings of the USA. First, we can think of it as a driver of progress towards an ideal end-state (at the very least, a community of cooperative states each of which seeks to secure the interests of those who live within it). Secondly, we can think of it as a ship of state that, while animated by large ambitions, struggles (as all states do) to say afloat on a sea of contingency. This paper does not argue that one or other of these understandings will ultimately prevail. Rather, it identifies the ideas on which it focuses as elements in a complex cluster of ideas that make it possible for the USA to pivot between the end-state and ship of state understandings that each have a place in the American Century.

Biography: Richard Mullender holds the post of Professor of Law and Legal Theory in 缅北禁地 Law School. He studied law in the universities of Exeter and Oxford and began his academic career in Exeter Law School. He researches in the fields of legal theory, tort law, and public law. He is a member of the editorial board of the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Professional Negligence. He is currently undertaking research on the relevance to law of John Rawls’ distinction between ideal and non-ideal political theory.