The Factory of Law

Does law conceal power relations or express formal rules? What is the difference between the production of scientific objectivity and the establishment of a legal fact? How is a seamless fabric of social connections woven through legal fiction? In this groundbreaking study, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour analyzes the functioning of the French Council of State, which is part of the complex system of checks and balances established by Napoleon Bonaparte. Observing the activities of the Council of State allows us to understand the very essence of the structure of the French Republic and law in general. Law interests Latour not as an ideological or formally logical construct, but as a necessary universal connective principle for the state. The Council of State, with its collective memory and mandatory reference to original precedent, in some sense preserves for history the fragmented voices of the past, which, when taken into account, allow society to expand its boundaries.