Volume 44, Issue 2 - Themed Issue: Collective Land Rights and Capitalist Economy, 19th–21st Centuries Guest Editor: Borbála Zsuzsanna Török

This text reviews the transformations of the commons in Spain in the long 19 th century based on the notion of “bundles of rights”. The contention is that the process of change was prompted by the clashes between alternative models, beginning with privatization or preservation and culminating in a complex landscape of property rights. In terms of privatization, several alternatives were advocated and eventually implemented, depending on the social groups that promoted them and their balance of power. In stylized form, two options that while not necessarily incompatible stand in opposition: on the one hand, privatization in the form of large property units with the land concentrated in the hands of an elite of creditors and investors, and on the other, small plots involving broader social participation and greater access. In turn, the preservation of communal lands did not rule out the privatization of their use, in some cases in favor of large industrial companies in the timber, resin, and cork sectors, and on other occasions in the service of social inclusion policies through the distribution of plots for their cultivation by the rural proletariat.

This article develops a historicising and comparative perspective on the transformation, formalisation, and negotiation of collective land rights in the Andean Highlands. It discusses and compares the trajectories of two highland areas situated across the Bolivian-Chilean border within the context of globally and nationally shifting frontiers of market and state integration since the late 19 th century. The case studies demonstrate a striking divergence in the context of the breakthrough of liberal land legislation in Latin America. Communities in the Bolivian province of Carangas were able to resist privatising pressures, while communities of the Arica highlands, once annexed and incorporated in Chile after the War of the Pacific, adjusted to a more homogeneous regime that left little room for communal land relations. Despite the stark contrasts, this article questions simplistic dichotomic framings of the unchallenged “survival” of communal land rights in Bolivia versus complete “disappearance” of communal arrangements in Chile. Empirical archival and ethnographic data point to the social reconfigurations and creative strategies through which the community as a collective legal entity and daily practice transformed. The article sheds light on the causes and longer-term implications of these regional trajectories within the context of a globalising land regime.

This paper presents the first results of a two-year interdisciplinary research project on the collective management of environmental resources in the Slovenian Karst region from the 19th century through the post-socialist era. Utilizing both anthropological fieldwork and historical archival research, the study explores the historical continuity and discontinuity of local agrarian communities’ practices in managing forests, land and pastures. The research emphasizes the socio-legal capacity of these communities to produce, claim, and negotiate rights amidst varying administrative and political regimes, from the Habsburg Empire to independent Slovenia. The study also compares similar cases in other Eastern European post-socialist countries, highlighting the complex dynamics of re-socialization and ownership morphologies. The findings suggest that a nuanced understanding of the historical and social contexts is crucial for interpreting the collective management of natural resources, with implications for current and future resource accessibility and sustainability.

The article discusses normative approaches to the commons and argues that similar perspectives emerged in the late nineteenth century, closely linked to claims of social and ecological justice. It posits its subject in the framework of nineteenth-century territorialization, more precisely the exercise of state power as a convergence of normative representations of the space and legislative and administrative practices. Analyzing the theoretical and political dimensions of a representative scholarly work, titled De la propriété et de ses forms primitives by the Belgian professor Émile de Laveleye (1822–1892), it formulates the thesis that Laveleye’s book is indicative of the renegotiation of the status of collective property in land as state territory. The article shows first how the book was shaping a universalist model of common land ownership by waving together European and colonial debates on the topic. Second, by following the English and German translations of the book, it shows how this model was linked to transnational agendas of social politics and land reform. These two aspects draw attention to the crucial role of the state as a historical and present stakeholder in shaping the status of commons as territories.

In conflicts around land usage, vulnerable groups are often threatened by dispossession of their land. Governance structures that protect both individual and collective land rights are thus necessary. To counter such risks, social movements engaged towards the establishment of a right to land norm in transnational governance. Building on literature on norm emergence, this paper exemplifies the involvement of activists in the creation process of two transnational regulations that address land: The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1989 and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in 2012. Both documents emerged in response to increasing global awareness of each specific issue. In the case of ILO 169, rising awareness of social inequality and discrimination of indigenous peoples and in the case of the VGGT the rapidly growing global land market. The paper reflects on the importance of timing, engagement, and discourse in creating norms and embedding them in global governance.

This article presents some dialogues between the recognition of rights of nature, indigenous communities and land property rights in the context of Latin American legal innovations in recent years. To do so this paper is framed within a socio-legal perspective that involves the analysis of a corpus of documents made up of regulatory texts at national and local level, including constitutions, laws, and ordinances related to the topics as well as relevant court rulings.

Zusammenfassung Viele Leistungen des SGB II und SGB III sind Ermessensleistungen. Zwar existieren ermessenslenkende Vorgaben durch die Ziele der Sozialgesetzbücher und Weisungen der Agentur für Arbeit, dennoch besteht ein nicht unerheblicher Entscheidungsspielraum für die Fachkräfte. Obwohl die Fachkräfte in der Arbeitsvermittlung Recht in die Praxis umsetzen, verfügen sie in der Regel nicht über eine langjährige juristische Ausbildung. Die teils widersprüchlichen Zielsetzungen in den Sozialgesetzbüchern können die konkrete Fallbearbeitung zusätzlich erschweren. Bisherige Untersuchung in der Arbeitsvermittlung stellen überdies eine heterogene Beratungspraxis der Fachkräfte fest. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welche professionellen und persönlichen Orientierungen der Fachkräfte Einfluss auf die Entscheidungen bei der Gewährung oder Nicht-Gewährung von Leistungen bei jungen Klient:innen unter 25 Jahren nehmen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Interpretation der gesetzlichen Rahmenbedingungen eng mit dem professionellen Selbstverständnis der Fachkräfte verbunden ist. Dieses Selbstverständnis unterscheidet sich jedoch von Fachkraft zu Fachkraft, was zur Schaffung spezifischer Rechtswirklichkeiten führt. Der Beitrag diskutiert auf Basis dieser Ergebnisse, was das Prinzip der Ermessenleistung für den Zugang zu Recht einer besonders vulnerable Personengruppe bedeutet.

Zusammenfassung Angesichts der zunehmenden Autonomisierung von (algorithmischen) Technologien stellt sich immer stärker die Frage, wie solche Technologien zu regulieren sind und wie sich solche Technologien regulierend auf das menschliche Zusammenleben auswirken. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird in diesem Beitrag diskutiert, inwieweit Technologien eine sanktionierende Wirkung haben können und in welchen sozio-technischen Zusammenhängen von einer technischen Sanktionsleistung gesprochen werden kann. Im Zuge dessen werden rechtswissenschaftliche und techniksoziologische Diskussionen zusammengeführt und vor dem Hintergrund eines (rechts-)soziologischen Sanktionsbegriffs, der auf die enge Verbindung mit sozialen Normen verweist, mit Bezug auf die Beispiele autonome Waffensysteme und alkoholsensitive Wegfahrsperren, analysiert. Diese unterscheiden sich mit Blick auf ihre Regulierungsweise in zeitlicher, sachlicher und sozialer bzw. symbolischer Hinsicht. Es wird argumentiert, dass Technik in einigen Fällen in der Tat sanktionieren kann, sie aber oft lediglich eine Funktionalisierung von Normbezügen durchführt. Diese begriffliche und konzeptuelle Differenzierung scheint umso wichtiger, je breiter und stärker Algorithmen und Technik insgesamt ins gesellschaftliche Leben regulierend eingreifen.

Since the 1980s, Niklas Luhmann has been a debated figure in Brazilian law, influencing court decisions and legal doctrine in books. This study aims to delineate the path through which Luhmann’s theory has been absorbed by the Brazilian Sociology of Law, seeking to clarify hypotheses circulating in the academic milieu that had not been tested. The paper’s methodological focus was to utilize interviews with the four main Luhmannian authors who had published works on the subject in the 1980s and 1990s, along with a semi-structured questionnaire for members of the Brazilian Law & Social System Network . The article also analyzes data from national open databases to infer the impact of Niklas Luhmann’s works on the Brazilian sociology of law. The results demonstrate the existence of over two hundred Luhmannian theses and dissertations in Brazilian sociology, a high frequency of citations in legal articles, and resounding influence in various research groups and in Brazilian courts. The conclusions highlight specific characteristics in Brazil for the reception of the theory, emphasizing the translation of some of the author’s legal-related texts into Brazilian Portuguese as catalysts for interest in Luhmann’s work, particularly in the ways these texts were introduced by Cláudio Souto and Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr. This study contributes to deepen the understanding about why Luhmann’s influence on the Brazilian Sociology of Law has prevailed.