Objectives

The course is aimed at Nordic PhD fellows in law (jurisprudence and related disciplines).

The course is based on the idea that law regularly employs economic and political elements which, along with socio-cultural factors, inform the legal system. Law affects and is affected by many other disciplines. Applying interdisciplinary approaches to legal research may give valuable insights and contribute to the relevance and applicability of the results. Within this framework, the course encourages discussions of legal issues as seen from economics and political science perspectives.

Learning outcomes

• to demonstrate an understanding of selected interdisciplinary approaches to legal research;
• to explain whether and how the students’ projects integrate economic and political elements in the traditional legal research;
• to justify the introduction of interdisciplinary approaches into the traditional legal research.

Content

The discussion will be guided by the participants’ project descriptions. Participants should be prepared to briefly introduce their own project and actively engage in discussion. It is therefore important that each participant has considered the challenges and practical problems connected with interdisciplinary approaches to the project from law, economics and political science perspectives.

Programme

ECTS

1 

Language

English

Course responsible

Viktoria Obolevich, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Law, Aarhus University, vao@law.au.dk

Registration

Registration deadline by the end of 17^th of November 2020.

Register by e-mail to reception@law.aau.dk. Remember to indicate the course name and date in the e-mail.

The course if free of charge, but is limited in availability.

Certificate of participation will be forwarded electronically    

Participants' preparation

Participants are requested to send a max 3 page summary of their research project to Viktoria Obolevich (vao@law.au.dk) by Wednesday 18 November 2020 at the latest. As part of the summary PhD fellows are required to analyze whether and how their project introduces economics and political science perspectives in the legal research, the description of the chosen research methods and justification of those methods.

In addition, there will be reading material to prepare for the course. Each participant shall be ready to present his or her own project.

Contact

Any questions about the course may be directed to Viktoria Obolevich, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Law, Aarhus University, vao@law.au.dk. 

Reading list

Jan M. Smits, 'The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic' 2012, Edward Elgar Publishing (selected chapters):

• Introduction: a discipline in crisis? pp.1 – 7.
• Legal science: a typology, pp.8 – 25.
• Methodology of normative legal science, pp.58 – 74.
• Legal science and methodology, pp.109 – 122.

Michael C. Munger, Economic choice, political decision, and the problem of limits, Public Choice, 137, 2008, pp. 507–522.

Rob van Gestel, Hans-W.Micklitz and Miguel Maduro, EUI Working papers Law 2012/13, Methodology in the new legal world (particularly chapters 6 and 7).

Lecia Vicente and Hans-W.Micklitz, EUI Working papers Law 2015, Interdisciplinary Research: Are We Asking the Right Questions in Legal Research?