Critical Historical Methodologies

Legal scholars and political scientists are currently experiencing a kind of linguistic vertigo, as their conceptual toolbox (judicial independence, rule of law, separation of powers, etc) has become ‘essential contested concepts’ and has moved to the centre of ongoing political contests about the future of democracy. This presentation will reflect on how critical historical methodologies, in particular sociogenetic approaches and the concept of the archive (Foucault), can help us to understand the dynamics of contemporary legal controversies and to position ourselves as scholars in this phase of semantic destabilization.

Professor Antoine Vauchez (Max Planck Law Fellow) is a CNRS Research Professor in political sociology and law and a member of the Centre européen de sociologie et science politique-CESSP (Université Paris 1-Sorbonne). He was recently awarded the Michael Endres Prize by the Hertie School of Governence where he is a visiting professor throughout the academic year 2021–22. He has been an elected member of the ‘Politics, Power and Organisation’ section of the CNRS national committee, is a permanent visiting professor at the iCourts research centre (Univ. of Copenhagen), and is co-director of the Master’s degree in ‘European Public Affairs’ at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne. Antoine Vauchez’s work lies at the intersection of the socio-history of transnational power Habilitation (2010), his main research themes are the formation of a European centre of power, the emergence of a body of legal and economic knowledge of the European project and the consolidation of a ‘power of independence’ around the European courts of justice, central banks and regulatory agencies.