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9 Hague J. on Rule L. 1 (2017)

handle is hein.journals/hagjuote9 and id is 1 raw text is: 

Hague J Rule Law (2017) 9:1 2
DOI 10.1007/s40803-016-0049-3
I  I ,


Ronald Janse on Behalf of the Editorial Board
of  the  HJRL


Ronald  Jansel






Published online: 13 February 2017
© T.M.C. Asser Press 2016


Nick Cheesman's  much  praised Opposing the Rule of Law: How Myanmar's  Courts
Make  Law  and Order is the first major study of courts and politics in contemporary
Myanmar.   It advances both general theory and close empirical description at the
highest level.
   Opposing the Rule of Law contributes significantly and distinctively to the theory
of the rule of law and to legal and political theory more generally. It develops a
persuasive argument that the rule of law is opposed to law and order, a concept with
which it is commonly conflated-in Myanmar but more widely as well. Regimes that
'lack' the rule of law rarely encounter an absence, but the presence of something
else, opposed to the rule of law, which has its own characteristics that need to be
explored  and understood.  Such  understanding matters  both intellectually and
practically: to how we think and to what we should do.
   At the same time, by paying close attention to the Burmese-language records of
393 criminal cases supplemented by findings from fieldwork and archival research
of hitherto unutilised or underutilised published and classified official documents,
the book pushes the study of politics in contemporary Myanmar beyond the binary
of democracy movement   versus military dictatorship, and also disrupts conventional
thinking about how authoritarian rulers use courts for political ends.
   As a result of its layered and sophisticated complexity, then, Opposing the Rule
of Law not merely advances our understanding of politics and law in Myanmar, but
significantly advances contemporary discussion of the rule of law. It is a book of
fine detail yet large implication.
   In June 2016, Opposing  the Rule of Law  was the subject of a lively Author-
Meets-Reader  panel  discussion at the Law   and Society Association's Annual
Meeting  in New  Orleans. Given  the manifest interest in the book exhibited by

H  Ronald Janse
   r.janse@uva.nl

   University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands


I  Springer 0 ASSER PRES;

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