Today, Fabio talks to Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Kim has a very special place in the PAL project. She was the scholar who popularized the term “autocratic legalism” in law and society studies and, back in 2019, she gave a powerful speech at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association, urging scholars to study how law had become part of the toolkit of autocrats. PAL was born that day, in response to her call.
Fabio and Kim discussed what autocratic legalism is, how it may differ from populism, and how the practices of legalist autocrats can be resisted and stopped.