The State of Custom : Gerd Spittler’s “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) today

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2021
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10.1515/zfrs-2021-0002
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Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie ; 41 (2021), 1. - pp. 3-20. - De Gruyter. - ISSN 0174-0202. - eISSN 2366-0392
Abstract
In our article, we engage with the anthropologist Gerd Spittler’s path-breaking article “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) in which he strives to integrate the existence of state courts (the eponymous Leviathan’s shadow) in (post-)colonial Africa into the analysis on non-state court legal prac-tices. According to Spittler, it is because of undesirable characteristics inherent in state courts that the disputing parties tended to rather involve mediators than pursue a state court judgment. The less people liked state courts, the more likely they were to (re-)turn to dispute settlement procedures. Now how has this situa-tion changed in the last four decades since its publication date? We relate his find-ings to contemporary debates in legal anthropology that investigate the relation-ship between disputing, law and the state. We also show through our own work in Africa and Asia, particularly in Southern Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan, in what ways Spittler’s by now classical contribution to the field of legal anthropology in 1980 can be made fruitful for a contemporary anthropology of the state at a time when not only (legal) anthropology has changed, but especially the way states deal with putatively “customary” forms of dispute settlement.
Summary in another language
Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit dem wegweisenden Artikel „Streitregelung im Schatten des Leviathans. Eine Darstellung und Kritik rechtsethnologischer Untersuchungen“ (1980) des Ethnologen Gerd Spittler, in dem er die Existenz staatlicher Gerichte (der namensgebende Schatten des Leviathans) im (post-)kolonialen Afrika in die Untersuchung von außergerichtlichen Rechtsformen einbezieht. Nach Spittler liegt es an den unerwünschten Charakteristika staatlicher Gerichte, dass Streitparteien es vorzogen, eine informelle Vermittlungsinstanz heranzuziehen als ein Urteil vor Gericht anzustreben: je weniger Menschen die Gerichte mochten, desto eher wandten sie sich Streitschlichtungsregelungen zu. Wir beziehen Spittlers Erkenntnisse auf gegenwärtige Debatten in der Rechtsethnologie um die Beziehungen zwischen Streit, Recht und Staat. Anhand unserer eigenen Forschungen in Südäthiopien und Kirgistan demonstrieren wir, wie Spittlers mittlerweile klassischer Beitrag zur Rechtsethnologie immer noch für eine zeitgemäße Ethnologie des Staates fruchtbar gemacht werden kann, wobei sich seither nicht nur die (Rechts-)Ethnologie gewandelt hat, sondern auch der konkrete Umgang von Staaten mit vorgeblich „gewohnheitsrechtlichen“ Formen der Streitregelung.
Subject (DDC)
300 Social Sciences, Sociology
Keywords
state; custom; customary law; disputing; harmony; legal anthropology
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Cite This
ISO 690BEYER, Judith, Felix GIRKE, 2021. The State of Custom : Gerd Spittler’s “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) today. In: Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie. De Gruyter. 41(1), pp. 3-20. ISSN 0174-0202. eISSN 2366-0392. Available under: doi: 10.1515/zfrs-2021-0002
BibTex
@article{Beyer2021State-54761,
  year={2021},
  doi={10.1515/zfrs-2021-0002},
  title={The State of Custom : Gerd Spittler’s “Dispute settlement in the shadow of Leviathan” (1980) today},
  number={1},
  volume={41},
  issn={0174-0202},
  journal={Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie},
  pages={3--20},
  author={Beyer, Judith and Girke, Felix}
}
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