From the Autopoiesis to the Allopoiesis of Law

✍ Scribed by Marcelo Neves

• Book ID: 108516610
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 107 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0263-323X
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00188

✦ Synopsis

This article discusses the empirical limits of the concept of autopoiesis of law in world society today. The argument is based principally on observation of the problems of reproduction of the legal system in ‘peripheral countries’. The central thesis of the article is that, in the countries of ‘peripheral modernity’ the reproduction of the legal system is blocked by a wide variety of social factors, in such a way that one can speak more of the allopoiesis than the autopoiesis of law. Beginning with a biological concept, the article considers the sociological concept of autopoiesis, and then analyzes the concept of autopoiesis of law. Based on this theoretical parameter, the argument about the allopoiesis of law in the ‘peripheral countries’ is presented. Finally, the article returns to the central theme of the allopoiesis of law in ‘peripheral countries’ and points to the indications of a normative concept of autopoiesis of law in the theories of Niklas Luhmann and Gunther Teubner.