Legal Integration and Rule of Law: A Comparative Analysis

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

The growing religious diversity in contemporary democracies makes the peaceful integration of religious minorities a policy and humanitarian imperative, and legal integration initiatives are an increasingly important avenue toward this goal. Yet limited consideration of rule of law exists in studies of the legal integration of religious minorities. Moreover, popular and scholarly accounts tend to depict the intersection of state law and religious law as highly oppositional and generative of contentious public debate. To better understand how rule of law might underpin or emerge from legal integration initiatives, this research explores the following questions: Do legal integration initiatives promote or produce a particular orientation to rule of law? Do they enhance perceptions of rule of law among minority and majority populations or otherwise shape legal consciousness and, in particular, rule of law consciousness? In short, do legal integration initiatives produce more discourse about, more understanding of, and more opportunity for the rule of law? By building theoretical understanding of the relationship between legal integration and rule of law, the research has the potential to contribute to scholarly and policy discussions of legal integration taking place worldwide. The research questions that guide this project will be examined through a cross-continental comparative analysis of legal integration initiatives, specifically the role played by family law in the integration of religious minorities. Field-based research (including interviews, discourse analysis, and focus groups) will be used to develop in-depth ethnographic studies of legal integration initiatives in two sites, Malta and Kenya. The proposed comparative analysis offers a comprehensive treatment of legal integration initiatives through family law, including their dimensions, variance, and effects, and two case studies illuminate these effects in detail, including the experiences of religious minorities. Anticipated project outputs include 1) scholarly publications and 2) a report on legal integration and family law designed for policy audiences.