This contribution is intended to provide an answer to a controversial question: Why does Carl Schmitt – perhaps the firmest advocate of the state unity – not only mention and praise Santi Romano’s book on the legal order – a work that can be rightfully considered an uncompromising defence of legal pluralism – but even list him among his inspirers?
This article juxtaposes Santi Romano’s legal-pluralist paradigm with other approaches to
illustrate why his theory contributes to contemporary debates in the international academic
environment. I first identify the differences between Romano and his contemporaries. In
this regard, it is my claim that his theory stands out from the rest as he was able to advocate a
pluralist conception of law without dissolving the legal into the social. I then put Romano’s
theory to the test of more recent literature on the issue with a view to arguing that it still
Legal pluralism, as a way of thinking about law, is the seemingly straightforward idea that there is a range of normative orders, which are independent from the state and can be properly described as legal without committing any conceptual mistake. Without giving a full survey of the long and varied history of legal pluralism theory, this article will discuss some central moments in that history.
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