Ruth Dukes
Ruth Dukes is Professor of Labour Law at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her research interests lie in the fields of labour law, labour history and employment relations. In 2010, she was awarded the Modern Law Review's Wedderburn Prize for her article 'Otto Kahn-Freund and Collective Laissez-Faire: an Edifice without a Keystone?'. In 2011/12 she was an Early Career Fellow of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council and a MacCormick Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her monograph, The Labour Constitution (OUP 2014) was runner up for the SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize 2016. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute of Employment Rights.
Address: Glasgow, United Kingdom
Address: Glasgow, United Kingdom
less
Uploads
Papers
In my contribution to this volume, my focus lies with the particular way in which Davidov seeks to identify the purposes of labour law. I begin by exploring in greater detail the nature of his project: why he wishes to identify labour law’s purposes; how he sets about doing so. On the basis of that exploration, I raise the question whether Davidov’s identification of labour law’s purposes is on the face of it sufficiently objective, and therefore authoritative, to be useful in the manner that he would like it to be. The final part of the paper is devoted to a brief discussion of possible alternative methods of identifying labour law’s purposes, assessed against Davidov’s ambition of assisting the legislature, the judiciary, and potential litigants in the interpretation and application of the law.
Monograph
The central argument of this book is that the labour constitution can be developed so as to provide an 'enduring idea of labour law', and this is constructed against a critique of modern arguments which favour reorienting labour law to align more closely with the functioning of labour markets. As compared with the posited 'law of the labour market', the labour constitution highlights the inherently political nature of labour laws and institutions, as well as their economic functions. It provides a framework for analysing labour laws, labour markets, and labour market institutions, which does not limit the capacity of scholarship in the field to retain its critical edge. It focuses our attentions on important questions, and important fields of enquiry: on questions, not least, of the consequences for workers of the narrowing and disappearance of spaces for democratic deliberation and democratic decision-making as markets continue to expand.
In my contribution to this volume, my focus lies with the particular way in which Davidov seeks to identify the purposes of labour law. I begin by exploring in greater detail the nature of his project: why he wishes to identify labour law’s purposes; how he sets about doing so. On the basis of that exploration, I raise the question whether Davidov’s identification of labour law’s purposes is on the face of it sufficiently objective, and therefore authoritative, to be useful in the manner that he would like it to be. The final part of the paper is devoted to a brief discussion of possible alternative methods of identifying labour law’s purposes, assessed against Davidov’s ambition of assisting the legislature, the judiciary, and potential litigants in the interpretation and application of the law.
The central argument of this book is that the labour constitution can be developed so as to provide an 'enduring idea of labour law', and this is constructed against a critique of modern arguments which favour reorienting labour law to align more closely with the functioning of labour markets. As compared with the posited 'law of the labour market', the labour constitution highlights the inherently political nature of labour laws and institutions, as well as their economic functions. It provides a framework for analysing labour laws, labour markets, and labour market institutions, which does not limit the capacity of scholarship in the field to retain its critical edge. It focuses our attentions on important questions, and important fields of enquiry: on questions, not least, of the consequences for workers of the narrowing and disappearance of spaces for democratic deliberation and democratic decision-making as markets continue to expand.
List of Content
Introduction: European Crises of Public Power: From Weimar until Today, Poul F. Kjaer & Niklas Olsen / PART I: Semantics, Notions and Narratives of Societal Crisis / 1. What Time Frame Makes Sense for Thinking about Crises?, David Runciman / 2. The Stakes of Crises, Janet Roitman / PART II: Weimar and the Interwar Period: Ideologies of Anti-Modernism and Liberalism / 3.The Crisis of Modernity – Modernity as Crisis: Towards a Typology of Crisis Discourses in Interwar East Central Europe and Beyond, Balázs Trencsényi / 4. European Legitimacy Crises – Weimar and Today: Rational and Theocratic Authority in the Schmitt-Strauss Exchange, John P. McCormick / 5.Crisis and the Consumer: Re-constructions of Liberalism in Twentieth Century Political Thought, Niklas Olsen / PART III: The Causes of Crises: From Corporatism to Governance / 6. The Constitutionalisation of Labour Law and the Crisis of National Democracy, Chris Thornhill / 7. Conflict and the Crisis in Labour Law: From Weimar to Austerity, Ruth Dukes / 8. From the Crisis of Corporatism to the Crisis of Governance, Poul F. Kjaer / PART IV: The Euro and the Crisis of Law and Democracy / 9. What is Left of the European Economic Constitution II? From Pyrrhic Victory to Cannae Defeat, Christian Joerges / 10. Reflections on Europe’s “Rule of Law Crises”, Jan-Werner Müller / 11. Democracy under Siege: The Decay of Constitutionalisation and the Crisis of Public Law and Public Opinion, Hauke Brunkhorst / PART V: The Consequences of Crises and the Future of Europe / 12. Crises and Extra-Legality: From Above and from Below, William E. Scheuerman / 13. “We could Go down the Road of Lebanon”: Crisis Thinking on the Anti-Muslim Far Right, Mikkel Thorup / 14. Conclusion and Perspectives: The Re-constitution of Europe, Poul F. Kjaer & Niklas Olsen
Review and review essays:
Romain Bonnet (2017): European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2017.1317054
Andreas Marklund (2018) Historisk Tidsskrift, 117, 2, 637 – 39.
Pablo Holmes (2018), ‘The constitutional politics of crisis in Europe’, Culture, Practice & European Policy, 3, 2, 92 – 98.