Adeno Addis (Tulane University – Law School) has posted Boundaries and the Making of Strangers: The Ethiopian Constitution and The Politics of Difference on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Law can play the role of either transforming strangers into co participants in a common project or make strangers out of neighbors. This could manifest in various processes: in the way law defines the relevant communities indicating as to who belongs and who does not; in the manner it draws boundaries (both physical and conceptual); in the way it defines the relationship between the individual and a collectivity, etc. In the process of defining boundaries, the law constitutes what issues or relationships are important and what the appropriate disposition or attitude towards them should be. Even more importantly, the law often constitutes who we are and how we should view our interlocutors: whether we should view them as co participants in a common project or think of them as outsiders or even as existential threats. This essay will pursue this general thesis by using the Federal Constitution of Ethiopia as an example. The claim is that this basic document has transformed neighbors into strangers both in the way it has drawn boundaries (physical and conceptual) and in how it has inclined Ethiopian citizens to view themselves and one another. The Constitution could, of course, be structured to realize the opposite possibility of law, its potential to transform strangers into co participants in a common project; its capacity to minimize the sacrifices and violence of boundaries (both physical and non-physical) without sacrificing their advantages altogether. The dignity of equal citizenship at all levels of governmental structures is one such integrative mechanism.
Recommended!
To receive new posts from Legal Theory Blog by email, get a free subscription to Legal Theory Stack.
Lawrence Solum