Abstract

This articles centres on the persistent intercourse between social order and its undoing. By exploring three types of legal institutionalism which will be dubbed "compositional" (Santi Romano), "performative" (Carl Schmitt) and "generative" (Widar Cesarini Sforza), we will debate the proposals these types advocate on how to make order out of the innate pluralism of the social and its inherent tendency to overproduce forms of normativity. While we will mainly be concerned with the differences between these versions of legal institutionalism, our claim is that they are to be read in parallel as they identify three movements that are inescapable in the production of order - ones that cannot be easily disentangled from each other. Our conclusion will be that legal institutionalism, in the versions advocated by these three types, foregrounds the circular interplay of order and disorder in a way that suggests regarding this circularity not as a problem to be overcome but as a productive force to be exploited.