Law & Social Inquiry
The ABF sponsors Law & Social Inquiry (LSI), a multidisciplinary quarterly publication of original research articles and review essays that analyze law, legal institutions, and the legal profession from a sociolegal perspective.
LSI contributors examine law and society issues across multiple disciplines, including anthropology, criminology, economics, history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and social psychology. The journal’s combination of empirical and theoretical scholarship and critical appraisal of the latest sociolegal scholarship makes LSI an indispensable source for legal scholars and practitioners.
For more information and submission guidelines, please visit the journals’ page at Cambridge University Press.
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Graduate Student Paper Competition
Law & Social Inquiry (LSI) conducts an annual competition for the best journal-length paper in the field of law and social science written by a graduate or law student.
We invite submissions from graduate and law students and nominations of student work from faculty. The author must be a graduate student or law student at the time the paper was written and when submitted. Faculty nominations should include a short description along with the paper and contact details for the student. Submissions will be evaluated by our editors. The winning submission will be sent to selected scholars for advisory reviews to aid with revisions prior to publication in LSI. The author(s) will receive a total cash prize of $500.00 (US).
Entries have closed on this year’s competition. Please stay tuned for news about this year’s winner and next year’s competition and contact lsi@abfn.org for more information.
We’re pleased to announce the winners of Law & Social Inquiry’s 2024 Graduate Student Paper Competition below.
“It's (Not) Just Semantics: ‘Neurotechnology’ as a Novel Space of Transnational Legal Governance”
Walter G. Johnson
“It’s (Not) Just Semantics: ‘Neurotechnology’ as a Novel Space of Transnational Legal Governance” uses the concept of boundary work to show how individual and organizational actors, rather than creating new legal spaces, establish boundaries both around and within these legal spaces. Through an empirical case study of neurotechnology governance—drawing on data from interviews with governing elites, participant observation, and documents and archival resources—Johnson’s work supports the argument that what is being regulated can influence who creates the laws and how they’re made.
Johnson (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian National University in the School of Regulation and Global Governance.
Editorial Staff
All inquiries regarding the journal or submission criteria can be directed to lsi@abfn.org.
Editorial Board
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International Book Essay Editorial Panel
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