BOOK: Cristiano PAIXÃO & Massimo MECCARELLI (Eds.), Comparing Transitions to Democracy. Law and Justice in South America and Europe (New York: Springer, 2021). ISBN: 978-3-030-67501-1, pp. 323, EUR 137

 

(Source: Springer)

ABOUT THE BOOK

This present book examines some of the key features of the interplay between legal history, authoritarian rule and political transitions in Brazil and other countries from the end of 20th Century until today. This book casts light on these aspects of the role of law and legal actors/institutions. In the context of transition from authoritarian rule to democratic state, Brazil has produced a significant literature on the challenges and shortcomings of the transition, but little attention has been given to the role of law and legal actors/institutions. Different approaches focus on the legal mechanisms, discourses and practices used by the military regime and by the players involved in the political transition process in Brazil. A comparative perspective that takes into account different political transitions – and their legal consequences – in Europe and Latin America complements the analysis.

Part 1 (4 essays) discusses some of the central issues of political transition and legal history in contemporary Brazil, focusing on the time of the transition (and its effects on transitional justice) with different perspectives, from racial and gender issues to constitutional reform and police repression. Part 2 (3 essays) brings the comparative studies on South American experiences. Part 3 (4 essays) analyses different cases of transition to democracy in Chile, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Part 4 (3 essays) proposes a historiographical and methodological approach, considering the politics of time involved in the interplay between political transitions and legal history.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Cristiano Paixão in Professor of legal history at the University of Brasília Law School. Doctor in Law degree from Federal University of Minas Gerais, with post-doctoral studies in historiography at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris and in modern history at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He was a visiting professor at Macerata University School of Law and at the Master’s Program in Constitutional Law at Seville University, and has published extensively about constitutional history. He was a member of the Brazilian Amnesty Committee (Ministry of Justice), was one of the coordinators of the Anísio Teixeira Memory and Truth Commission (University of Brasília). His main research interests are constitutional history, law and literature, and interdisciplinary studies in law.

Massimo Meccarelli is Professor of Legal History at the University of Macerata (Italy), and affiliate researcher of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (Frankfurt am Main). He was visiting professor at: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Universität Wien, Universität Luzern. He is author of several works on history of legal thought, history of justice, historiography and methodology of legal history. Most recently research interests: law and diversity, legal pluralism, constitution making process, time and law, law and humanities.

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