Summary Of Adversarial Legalism By Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan describes adversarial legalism as just one of the many types of methods used in policy implementation and dispute regulation. The key difference between this specific type of method, and methods used by western European nations and others, is that adversarial legalism is dominated heavily by lawyers rather than by judges. Kagan also notes a second difference, saying that adversarial legalism is its own functioning, “mode of governance…embedded in the political culture and political structure of the United States,” (5). What he means by this is that through this American legal system, political discourse and party influences play a large role in the evolution of laws and the response of legal decisions by judges, businesses, politicians,