Alec Stone Sweet

Last updated
Alec Stone Sweet
NationalityAmerican
Education Western Washington University (BA)
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (MA)
University of Washington (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields Political science and law
Institutions Yale Law School
National University of Singapore
The University of Hong Kong

Alec Stone Sweet is an American political scientist and jurist. He is Professor and Chair of Comparative and International Law at The University of Hong Kong. [1]

Contents

Scholarship

Stone Sweet graduated from Western Washington University (BA, Political Science), the Johns Hopkins SAIS (MA, International Relations), and the University of Washington (Ph.D., Political Science).

In January 2016, Stone Sweet became the first Saw Swee Hock Centennial Professor in Law, a tenured full-time position at National University of Singapore Law, leaving his tenured position at Yale in order to focus on Asian law and institutions and to be close to the Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI) and the new Singapore International Commercial Court. [2] From 2004 to 2014, he was Leitner Professor of Law, Politics, and International Studies at the Yale Law School. Prior to Yale, he was Official Fellow and Chair of Comparative Government at Nuffield College (1998–2005), and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine (1991–1998). He has also taught in universities in France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. [3]

Stone Sweet works in the fields of comparative and international politics, comparative and international law, and European integration. He has published eleven books and edited volumes, and more than 70 papers, including in the American Journal of Sociology , the American Political Science Review , Comparative Political Studies , West European Politics , the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the Journal of European Public Policy , and the Revue Française de Science Politique. Many of the most important papers are freely available on his Selected Works site. [4]

Stone Sweet's research has had broad influence in both law and the social sciences. The 1996 paper, "Judicialization and the Construction of Governance" (published in 1999) developed a theory of "judicialization," explaining how judicial power emerges, institutionalizes, and impacts on markets and politics. The paper also made an important contribution to new institutional thinking in the social sciences, showing how rationalist and more sociological or constructivist approaches could (or must) be blended to explain macro-institutional change. [5] Stone Sweet is also credited (through the books, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France, and Governing with Judges) with reviving the study of comparative constitutional law, which is now a thriving area of research. Indeed, he has been called the "Contemporary Godfather of Comparative Constitutional Law." [6] In his research on the evolution of the European Union, he partnered with Wayne Sandholtz and Neil Fligstein to update Ernst Haas' theory of integration, called neofunctionalism. [7] and to test it against rival theories. This work (especially the books, European Integration and Supranational Governance, The Institutionalization of Europe, and The Judicial Construction of Europe) demonstrated that integration proceeded as the activities of market actors, lobbyists, legislators, and judges became connected to one another. "These linkages, in turn, produced a self-reinforcing, causal system that has driven integration and given the EU its fundamentally expansionary character." [8] The research also showed that intergovernmentalist theories of European integration – which emphasized the centrality of State officials and their preferences, and downplayed transnational and supranational actors – were seriously flawed, failing to explain many of the most important market and political developments. [9] His most recent work concerns human rights, and the constitutionalization of international regimes. [10]

Music and sports

Stone Sweet has recorded three CDs, including Memory and Praise: Acoustic Guitar Solos (Appleseed and Solid Air), and Tumblin' Gap: Clawhammer Guitar Solos (Solid Air).

Memory and Praise contains Irish harp, bagpipe, and dance tunes, as well as the first solos ever recorded in clawhammer guitar style [needs citation], two medleys of Appalachian fiddle tunes played in clawhammer style. In 2001, it was one of five recordings nominated for a 2001 Indie Award – the Best Acoustic Instrumental category. Eric Schoenberg called it "as beautiful a solo guitar recording as I have ever heard." Jody Stecher praised the "extraordinary guitar playing, resembling no one else in touch, technique, or feel." Stone Sweet was featured in an article on Celtic Guitar by Acoustic Guitar , where he discusses dance tunes, guitar tunings, and influences on his playing. [11]

In Tumblin' Gap, Stone Sweet plays Appalachian and Celtic music using the Clawhammer style that he developed from old time banjo playing. The album was named one of the top ten recordings of 2005 by several critics and radio stations. In its review, Acoustic Guitar described the CD as follows: "Entrancing, the rhythmic sense and phrasing are spot on. Compulsory listening for guitar fans, Tumblin' Gap is the kind of surprising recording that inspires new movements." [12] Bill Hicks, in his review for the Old Time Herald, wrote that: "Alec Stone Sweet is a guitar virtuoso…[his new] record would serve to explain to the uninitiated just why we care so much about these old melodies, about just what a tune is really about." [13] Stone Sweet explains how he developed and uses Clawhammer techniques on his guitar page. [14]

Stone Sweet plays competitive Pétanque.

Selected books

Related Research Articles

In international relations, intergovernmentalism treats states as the primary actors in the integration process. Intergovernmentalist approaches claim to be able to explain both periods of radical change in the European Union because of converging governmental preferences and periods of inertia because of diverging national interests.

Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.

The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state power and requires these operations of government to be conceptually and institutionally distinguishable and articulated, thereby maintaining the integrity of each. To put this model into practice, government is divided into structurally independent branches to perform various functions. When each function is allocated strictly to one branch, a government is described as having a high degree of separation; whereas, when one person or branch plays a significant part in the exercise of more than one function, this represents a fusion of powers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legislature</span> Deliberative assembly that makes laws

A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Legislatures can exist at different levels of government–national, state/provincial/regional, local, even supranational. Countries differ as to what extent they grant deliberative assemblies at the subnational law-making power, as opposed to purely administrative responsibilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clawhammer</span> Banjo playing style

Clawhammer, sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or most commonly known as frailing, is a distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music. The style likely descends from that of West African lutes, such as the akonting which are also the direct ancestors of the banjo.

A confederation is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defence, foreign relations, internal trade or currency, with the central government being required to provide support for all its members. Confederalism represents a main form of intergovernmentalism, defined as any form of interaction around states that takes place on the basis of sovereign independence or government.

Neofunctionalism is a theory of regional integration which downplays globalisation and reintroduces territory into its governance. Neofunctionalism is often regarded as the first European integration theory developed by Ernst B. Haas in 1958 as part of his PhD research on the European Coal and Steel Community. Neofunctionalism seeks to explain the European integration process and why states accept to become a part of supranational organization. Jean Monnet's approach to European integration, which aimed at integrating individual sectors in hopes of achieving spillover effects to further the process of integration, is said to have followed the neofunctional school's tack.

A supranational union is a type of international organization and political union that is empowered to directly exercise some of the powers and functions otherwise reserved to states. A supranational organization involves a greater transfer of or limitation of state sovereignty than other kinds of international organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative politics</span> Field in political science

Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government.

Political jurisprudence is a legal theory that some judicial decisions are best understood as part of a political process, with judges operating as political actors. That is, judges are sometimes influenced by public opinion, political activists, and government officials, and their work can be understood as a way of legitimizing and institutionalizing the preferences of these political actors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph H. H. Weiler</span> South African-American academic (born 1951)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Tushnet</span> American constitutional law scholar (born 1945)

Mark Victor Tushnet is an American legal scholar. He specializes in constitutional law and theory, including comparative constitutional law, and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Tushnet is identified with the critical legal studies movement.

Multi-level governance is a term used to describe the way power is spread vertically between levels of government and horizontally across multiple quasi-government and non-governmental organizations and actors. This situation develops because countries have multiple levels of government including local, regional, state, national or federal, and many other organisations with interests in policy decisions and outcomes. International governance operates based on multi-level governance principles. Multi-level governance can be distinguished from multi-level government which is when different levels of government share or transfer responsibility amongst each other. Whereas multi-level governance analyses the relationship of different state levels and interaction with different types of actors.'

Giandomenico Majone is an Italian scholar of political science whose expertise was regulatory governance within the European Union (EU) as well as theories of delegation and their effect on the perceived democratic deficit of the EU. He was an Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Walter Mattli is a supernumerary fellow at St. John's College of the University of Oxford, England. He served as fellow in politics at St. John's College and professor of international political economy in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford. Mattli was a senior member of the Oxford International Relations Society.

Gary Marks is an American-based academic and an expert on multilevel governance and the European Union. He is a Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a recurring Research Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre, EUI, Florence. Marks developed the concept of "multilevel governance.”

Staatenverbund is a neologism for a system of multi-level governance in which states work more closely together than in a confederation but, unlike a federal state, retain their own sovereignty. The concept is used in Germany to describe the European Union but has no direct equivalent in other languages. In German jurisprudence, a Staatenverbund is a supranational institution that may exercise sovereign acts but may not independently fix areas where it may exercise this power.

Ran Hirschl is a political scientist and comparative legal scholar. He is the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Toronto. Previously, he held the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several major books and over one hundred and fifty articles on constitutional law and its intersection with comparative politics and society. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2021, he was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research for his book City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity.

Keith E. Whittington is an American political scientist and legal scholar. He has been the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University since 2006. In July 2024, he joined the Yale Law School faculty. Whittington's research focuses on American constitutionalism, American political and constitutional history, judicial politics, the presidency, and free speech and the law.

Comparative federalism is a branch of comparative politics and comparative government, the main focus of which is the study of the nature, operation, possibilities and effects of federal governance forms across two or more cases.

References

  1. ↑ "Alec Stone Sweet". 2021.
  2. ↑ "Yale Law Professor to join NUS". Channel News Asia International Division. 21 May 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "Staff Profile Alec Stone Sweet". NUS Law. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  4. ↑ Stone Sweet, Alec. "Selected works". works.bepress.com. Bepress.
  5. ↑ Stone Sweet, Alec (April 1999). "Judicialization and the construction of governance". Comparative Political Studies . 32 (2): 147–184. doi:10.1177/0010414099032002001. hdl: 1814/1474 . S2CID   10622644. Available online.
  6. ↑ Fontana, David (May 3, 2008). "The (contemporary) godfather of comparative constitutional law?". concurringopinions.com. Concurring Opinions.
  7. ↑ Stone Sweet, Alec; Sandholtz, Wayne (6 April 2010). "Neofunctionalism and supranational governance". SSRN . doi:10.2139/ssrn.1585123. S2CID   153953442. SSRN   1585123.
  8. ↑ The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, 2004), p. 14.
  9. ↑ Sandholtz, Wayne; Stone Sweet, Alec, eds. (1998). European integration and supranational governance. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198294641.
    Stone Sweet, Alec (2004). The judicial construction of Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated. ISBN   9780199275533..
  10. ↑ Stone Sweet, Alec; Keller, Helen (2008). A Europe of rights: the impact of the ECHR on national legal systems. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199535262.
    Stone Sweet, Alec (Summer 2009). "Constitutionalism, legal pluralism, and international regimes" (PDF). Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. 16 (2): 621–645. doi:10.2979/gls.2009.16.2.621. S2CID   52253830. Available online.
  11. ↑ Callaran, Danny (Spring 2002). "Interview with Alec Stone Sweet". islandia.law.yale.edu. Yale Law School. Archived from the original on 2012-07-12. Retrieved 2010-05-02. Excerpts published in a feature on Celtic Guitar in Acoustic Guitar, September 2002.
  12. ↑ Forbes-Roberts, Ron (February 2006). "Review of Tumblin' Gap". Acoustic Guitar.
  13. ↑ Hicks, Bill (April–May 2006). "Review of Tumblin' Gap: Clawhammer Guitar Solos". Old-Time Herald. 10 (4): 56.
  14. ↑ Stone Sweet, Alec (2006). "Clawhammer guitar". islandia.law.yale.edu. Yale Law School. Archived from the original on 2006-09-01.
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