Rules, Laws, Constitutions - Tapa dura

Many of the existing ideas and practices underlying general and legal rules and constitutions evolved in Europe and were adopted by societies elsewhere under colonial auspices. Indigenous cultural premises and socio-political concepts, however, often do not support the working of these Eurocentric general rules. This is the underlying premise of this collection of original essays which examines the significance of laws both in cognition and social existence and their importance, along with constitutions, in large societies.