New book: Sam Adelman & Abdul Paliwala (eds), “The Limits of Law and Development – Neoliberalism, Governance and Social Justice” (Routledge, 2021)

This book examines the field of ‘law and development’ and asks whether the concept of development and discourses on law and development have outlived their usefulness.

The contributors ask whether the focus on these concepts should rather be shifted to social injustices such as patriarchy, impoverishment, human rights violations, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and global heating? If we abandoned the idea of development, would this commonly understood (though contested) term be replaced by another, equally problematic one? In raising these questions, the contributors make use of  historical and contemporary case studies to analyse the links between conventional academic approaches to law and development, neoliberal governance and activism.

Dr. Sam Adelman and Prof. Abdul Paliwala are respectively Reader and Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Warwick (an LDRN partner institution). Sam Adelman is currently a member of the LDRN steering committee.