This paper evaluates the different tactics of hybrid regime to cope with contentious politics by legal means. The author suggests that hybrid regimes can repress political opposition by legal instruments without creating political instability. By using a method of triangulation between history, media and case law, the author traces the institutional setting of post-colonial Hong...
Friend and Enemy Revised: Derrida and The Politics of Friendship
In one of his most famous book, Der Begriff des Politischen, Carl Schmitt wrote that the one of the essential debate on political refers to the differentiation between friend and enemy. This affirmation has been repeated over the decades. Nonetheless, Jacques Derrida has demonstrated a crucial mistake on Schmitt’s notion of the political. In his...
Legal Profession in the Waning and Ebbing of Liberal Politics: Clashing Rule of Law Ideals in Taiwan and Hong Kong
Entering this century, Taiwan and Hong Kong both saw drastic political transformation while TW liberalized and HK faced further limitation. A puzzle is why, despite diverging legal-political contexts, the local legal profession both grew to split? I argue for an ideational explanation. Namely, the legal profession is not an it but they. Their ideals of...
See and Avoid: exploring the role of lawyers who advise government in difficult politics
Drawing on models of expertise, developed by policy scholars this paper examines how values, and politics enter highly contested policy debates and into legal decision-making by government agencies. I will explore the findings of a case study on the controversial Australian airspace reform “NAS2b“ to highlight how lawyers advising different actors within that debate, positioned...
The Party and the Law: China‘s Legalization of Party Punishment
The most significant legal innovation that Xi Jinping plans to institute to expand his anti-corruption campaign is the anticipated creation of a National Supervisory Commission in March 2018. This institution will require the adoption of new legislation and Constitutional revisions. In effect it will consolidate the control of the Chinese Communist Party’s discipline inspection over...