New Perspectives on the Public-Private Divide

The separation between public and private spheres has structured much of our thinking about human organizations. Scholars from nearly all disciplines use the notion of a public-private divide as a means to order knowledge and better understand the mechanisms that govern and shape human behaviour and institutions. In legal and socio-legal analysis, the distinction informs the differences between state and non-state actors and between public good and private property. This rich collection of essays explores how the public-private divide influences, challenges, and interacts with law and law reform. Through various case studies, the contributors reflect on this complex dichotomy’s role in structuring the socio-legal environment for the personal, social, economic, and governance relationships of citizens. They demonstrate that while the split between the public and the private is a useful way to understand the world, it is always only an ideological construct, and as such open to challenge.