Article Summary and Critique

The article provides legal and theoretical background of societal constitutionalism (SC), contextualizing the theoretical toolkit of this theory, identifying a discursive platform with a more traditional legal-theoretical attitude towards constitutional laws. According to the author, SC is an emerging legal theory identifying trends of constitutionalization away from a nation-state in two diverse directions. Beyond the limits of a country, constitutions develop in the institutions of global politics and co-occur beyond the limits of political affairs in the “private” segments of international society. The primary goal of constitutional theory is to analyze the conditions for the development, co-existence, and advancement of such constitutional developments. Because of that, Teubner defines SC as the theory of constitutional and legal pluralism applicable both in the framework of the nation-state and clarifies its full normative and analytical potential in global milieus. SC is a reaction to dilemmas of modernization and associated trends, including globalization, the emergence of the digital and global economy, which constitutionalism has been confronted with since the start of the 20^th century.

Teubner’s article effectively builds an understanding of the world’s constitutional order amidst globalization. Almost every constitutional order in the world is confronted with one central question: how can an amply large amount of external pressure be engendered on the global subsystems, pushing them into self-limitation of their options? Teubner effectively explores this staggered nature of modernization, and the associated globalization, arguing that this staggering generates tensions between the self-foundation of self-governing universal social systems and their legal-political constitutionalization. The author raises concern about this tension to call attention to the fact that the pattern that initially existed in the nation-state between politics-law and subsystems (regulated fields) are irrevocably drifting apart. The author offers a solution to this irrevocable development, arguing that global function systems need to develop their constitutions.

However, on the negative side, the paper lacks a methodological framework that can guide the readers into how the researchers arrived at the study’s conclusions. The article also lacks a formal appearance, no abstract, a section describing the method, and other elements that facilitate reading for a non-expert in the areas.

Soltanpour, Y., Peri, I., & Temri, L. (2019). Area of protection in S-LCA: human well-being or societal quality. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 24(11), 2073-2087.

Soltanpour, Peri, and Temri’s (2019) article critically evaluate sociological perspectives and well-being methodologies adopted to assess the impact of a change in social systems. The authors considered two main perspectives, holistic and individualistic using four criteria: social values, subjectivity, rebound effects, and the likelihood of aggression of social data. The article attempt to inform social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) practitioners about the idea of social change as conceptualized by socialists. The researchers argue that technical or organizational change induces new benefits and costs in social systems. However, less attention is directed to the link between people when looking at societal well-being. As such, social benefits and costs are not valorized. Hence, the S-LCA comes in to assess the social impacts any product has on people along its life cycle. As defined in this article, social results include those affecting stakeholders along the product’s life cycle and may be associated with a company’s behavior, effects on social capital, and socioeconomic processes.

The article is well organized with an abstract, clearly outlined methodology, and the language and jargon used to depict the discipline. Each section of the paper describes a specific element on the research topic backed by credible sources.

References

Soltanpour, Y., Peri, I., & Temri, L. (2019). Area of protection in S-LCA: human well-being or societal quality. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 24(11), 2073-2087.

Teubner, G. (2021). Societal Constitutionalism: Background, Theory, Debates. ICL Journal, 15(4), 357-411.

Article Summary and Critique