Henderson on Legal Use of Crisis Discourse

Laura M. Henderson, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has published Crisis in the Courtroom: The Conditions of Possibility for Ruptures in Legal Discourse. Here is the abstract.

This article addresses the conditions of possibility for the precautionary turn in legal discourse. Although the precautionary turn itself has been well-detailed in both legal and political discourse (De Goede, 2008; Van Munster, 2004), insufficient attention has been paid to what made this shift possible. By remedying this gap with an analysis of the judiciary’s use of crisis discourse, this article calls attention to crisis as a point of hegemonic struggle. This insight is relevant to all uses of crisis discourse, even after 9/11, and entails a responsibility for those engaged in legal discourse to consciously intervene in this struggle of legal meaning.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.