Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities by Gad Barzilai

Communities and Law looks at minorities, or nonruling communities, and their identity practices under state domination in the midst of globalization. It examines six sociopolitical dimensions of community--nationality, social stratification, gender, religion, ethnicity, and legal consciousness--within the communitarian context and through their respective legal cultures.

Gad Barzilai addresses such questions as: What is a communal legal culture, and what is its relevance for relations between state and society in the midst of globalization? How do nonliberal communal legal cultures interact with transnational American-led liberalism? Is current liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights, litigation, and adjudication, sufficient to protect pluralism and multiculturalism? Why should democracies encourage the collective rights of nonruling communities and protect nonliberal communal cultures in principle and in practice? He looks at Arab-Palestinians, feminists, and ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel as examples of the types of communities discussed. Communities and Law contributes to our understanding of the severe tensions between democracies, on the one hand, and the challenge of their minority communities, on the other, and suggests a path toward resolving the resulting critical issues.

Gad Barzilai is Professor of Political Science and Law and Co-Director of the Law, Politics and Society Program, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University.

Who is Gad Barzilai ?

 Gad Barzilai (born 1958) is a scholar of political science and law, famous for his work on the politics of law, human rights and communities. He is a professor of law, societies and justice, and international studies at University of Washington. In the past he was a professor of political science and law at Tel Aviv University where he served as its Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Law, Society and Politics Program.
Gad Barzilai is best known for his critical analysis of law as a dimension in political power, which should be understood through using combined methodology of socio-political-legal studies. His work emphasizes the importance of political elite, critical communitarianism, legal pluralism, cultural relativism and political power in local, state and global sites.

Biography

Barzilai was born on January 11, 1958 in Tel Aviv from family of Holocaust survivors. He studied History, Judaism and Political Science at Bar-Ilan University, Law at Tel Aviv University and in 1987 he received his PhD in political science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem which awarded him several prestigious prizes including Fulbright. After completing his PhD and LLB [JD] he studied quantitative research methods at University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor, and completed a post-doc in comparative politics at Yale University.
He served as a professor at Tel Aviv University in the political science department and law school. Barzilai was the First Founding Director (1999-2002) of the newly established international Dan David Prize, which is among the three large Prize foundations in the world, bestowing international prizes and scholarships for academic and scientific international excellence. In 2005 he moved to University of Washington where he is currently a professor in the Law, Societies, and Justice Program^[1], Comparative Law and Society Studies Center^[2], and in the Jackson School of International Studies^[3].
Barzilai was the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Israeli Association of Law and Society; Board Member of the Law and Society Association (Class 2006), Board Member of the American Journal of Political Science (1998-2003), Board Member of the Association of Israel Studies (1993-1996, 2007- ), Board Member of Israel Studies Forum (2004- ), and Board Member of the Journal of Comparative Studies (2006- ). He is active in international, Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian human rights organizations and has advised senior politicians and NGOs on issues of law and politics. Barzilai has been elected in 2009 as the Vice President of the Association of Israel Studies ^[4].

References

1. ^ Law, Societies, and Justice Program (LSJ)
2. ^ Comparative Law and Society Studies Center (CLASS)
3. ^ Jackson School of International Studies
4. ^ [1]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gad_Barzilai