Hitting bottom: collective dependency and social crises

Intertwining the knowledge of the legal sciences with that of the social sciences, with Gunther Teubner an attempt will be made to understand the causes of the crisis in progress and to outline hypothetical solutions, investigating different methods and fields of knowledge. Through the perspective of systems theory, the analysis has focused on those social and communicative behaviors that allude to self-destructive processes of growth, intertwining them with the analysis of constitutional processes. Examining, finally, the emergence of new social orientations, the discussion has looked at how change cannot be achieved from the outside, but through the “inner constitution” of the system that transforms itself, giving rise to constitutions beyond the State.

Gunther Teubner

A jurist and sociologist of German law, member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has taught in the most prestigious European institutions, like the University of Frankfurt, the European Institute of Florence and the London School of Economics, where he held the Otto Kahn Freund Chair. He has been a visiting professor at Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Stanford, Toronto, Berlin and Maastricht, Shanghai and Beijing. From 2010 to 2013 he taught at the International University College of Turin, and from 2007 to 2012 he was one of the Principal Investigators of the cluster of excellence “Normative Orders” of the University of Frankfurt. He has received honorary doctorates from the universities of Lucerne, Naples, Tiflis, Macerata and Lund, as well as many honors for his research on social theory and private law, contractual law and comparative law. His research focuses on the relationship between law and other social systems, on the globalization of law and processes of constitutionalization of civil spheres. Gunther Teubner has published in many languages, here is a list of his books: Networks as Connected Contracts (Hart Publishing, 2011); Il diritto possibile (Guerini, 2011); Regime-Kollisionen: Zur Fragmentierung des Weltrechts (Surhkamp Verlag, 2006); La cultura del diritto nell’epoca della globalizzazione: L’emergere delle costituzioni civili (Armano editore, 2005); Direito, Sistema, Policontexturalidade (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2005); Diritto policontesturale (Ruffino,1999); Droit et réflexivité (P.U.F,1994); Law as an Autopoietic System (Blackwell Publishers,1993); Organisationsdemokratie und Verbandsverfassung (Mohr Siebeck, 1978); Gegenseitige Vertragsuntreue (Mohr Siebeck, 1975); Public Functions of Private Associations (1974); Standards und Direktiven in Generalklauseln (Athenäum-Verl.,1971).