Shklar, Judith N.

This entry traces the emergence of Judith Shklar’s political thought with a particular focus on her contribution to legal theory and jurisprudence. We locate Shklar in some of the great debates about justice/injustice, political trials, constitutionalism, law, rights, legalism, citizenship, and obligation. Shklar had a distinctive voice, and here we differentiate her from selected other significant legal and political thinkers of her time. Shklar developed an approach that refused evasive systems-building, was sensitive to the sociological contexts of legal arguments, and without collapsing law into politics stressed the importance of politics when looking at legal matters. Drawing on both American and European debates, she was part of a transatlantic dialogue about different legal traditions and their significance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For her, law and a robust politics of law are vital elements in the functioning of complex, pluralist societies.