ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of some of the empirical evidence indicating the general direction of the most phase of legal development. The general concept of postmodernization has placed emphasis on the inter-related nature of change in the spheres of state, economy and civil society, and the impact of influences above and below the level of the state. Privatization dramatically transforms the structure of legal obligations and entitlements characteristic of the welfare state. The re-characterization of the legal subject from citizen to consumer, to citizen as consumer, also represents a shift in emphasis in the substantive content of citizenship rights. A further legal characteristic of privatization, which bears directly on the declining social rights of citizens, is a weakening of the social responsibilities of public enterprises once they pass into private hands. The progressive dismantling of the "public interest" state tends to outstrip many theoretical analyses of shifts in core concepts of legal doctrine in the welfare state.
