Introducing Jurisdynamics, a new blog on law
Attempting to find in motion what was lost in space . . . for time is the longest distance between two places. . . . For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles . . . and so goodbye.
Law can never fully insulate itself from the impact of societal and technological change. For instance, the United States Constitution was not only adopted "in Order to . . . secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," but also was "intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 415 (1819). Likewise, if law harbors any hope of sustaining "ideas and aspirations that must survive more ages than one," the law must respond to upheaval. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 901 (1992). Any stability in the law is episodic at best and prone to violent interruption.
This blog openly embraces a dynamic model of legal change. Jurisdynamics describes the interplay between legal responses to exogenous change and the law's own endogenous capacity for adaptation. The world that law tries to govern has become "so vast that fully to comprehend it would require an almost universal knowledge ranging from" economics and the natural sciences "to the niceties of the legislative, judicial and administrative processes of government." Queensboro Farms Prods., Inc. v. Wickard, 137 F.2d 969, 975 (2d Cir. 1943). Within the realm of legal scholarship, this blog aspires to the goal that historian David Christian set out for his discipline: "that the appropriate time scale for the study of history may be the whole of time." David Christian, The Case for "Big History," 2 J. World Hist. 223, 223 (1991). Jurisdynamics will present the case for "big law," for the proposition that the substantive scale on which law should be studied, taught, and learned is the entirety of human experience.
As a matter of organization, this blog will focus on tools and subjects within the realm of jurisdynamics. Within the expansive world of legal scholarship, some methods and subjects simply lend themselves more naturally to jurisdynamic analysis.
Jurisdynamic tools include:
-- Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Law can never fully insulate itself from the impact of societal and technological change. For instance, the United States Constitution was not only adopted "in Order to . . . secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," but also was "intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 415 (1819). Likewise, if law harbors any hope of sustaining "ideas and aspirations that must survive more ages than one," the law must respond to upheaval. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 901 (1992). Any stability in the law is episodic at best and prone to violent interruption.
This blog openly embraces a dynamic model of legal change. Jurisdynamics describes the interplay between legal responses to exogenous change and the law's own endogenous capacity for adaptation. The world that law tries to govern has become "so vast that fully to comprehend it would require an almost universal knowledge ranging from" economics and the natural sciences "to the niceties of the legislative, judicial and administrative processes of government." Queensboro Farms Prods., Inc. v. Wickard, 137 F.2d 969, 975 (2d Cir. 1943). Within the realm of legal scholarship, this blog aspires to the goal that historian David Christian set out for his discipline: "that the appropriate time scale for the study of history may be the whole of time." David Christian, The Case for "Big History," 2 J. World Hist. 223, 223 (1991). Jurisdynamics will present the case for "big law," for the proposition that the substantive scale on which law should be studied, taught, and learned is the entirety of human experience.
As a matter of organization, this blog will focus on tools and subjects within the realm of jurisdynamics. Within the expansive world of legal scholarship, some methods and subjects simply lend themselves more naturally to jurisdynamic analysis.
Jurisdynamic tools include:
- Mathematics, statistics, and empirical analysis, including bibliometrics
- Language, linguistics, and interpretation
- Complexity theory
- Evolutionary biology and behavioral psychology
Naturally jurisdynamic subjects include:
- Innovation policy and intellectual property
- Economic regulation, antitrust, and competition policy
- Environmental protection, natural resources, and agriculture
- Natural disasters and other emergencies
- Trade, development, and public finance
- Constitutional law and democratic governance
I welcome you to Jurisdynamics. I hope you visit often.
3 Comments:
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Congratulations, Jim!
Welcome!
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