Three to one: approaching the econo-socio-legal

Academics and policy-makers cling tight to the ‘legal', 'economic' and 'social'. They stand with their backs to each other, speaking towards their disciplinary comfort zones. But real life is an econo-socio-legal tangle. So we should turn around: pool the concepts, facts and values that are characteristic of law, economics and sociology. We can then think, for example, of production and consumption not as 'the economy', but as social activities with econo-legal dimensions; of laws and institutions not as ‘the legal’ but as econo-social constructs; and of actions and interactions not as ‘the social’ but as econo-legally significant aspects of social life. My interest in this topic evolved from my research into the gulf between the World Bank's 'comprehensive development' agenda, and its econo-centric campaign to rank countries (and their legal systems) as 'investment climates'. The only way to expose and bridge such gaps is to adopt a comprehensive econo-socio-legal approach.