Suchergebnisse

The development of sociology of law -- The identity and function of sociology of law -- The place of values in socio-legal studies -- Legal culture and cultural diversity -- Socio-legal studies and the law school -- Jurisprudence in context -- The jurist as humanist polymath (Petrażycki) -- The jurist as legal sociologist (Ehrlich) -- Radical legal pluralism in the shadow of fascism (Romano) -- A functional jurisprudence for the welfare state (Lundstedt) -- Parallel histories-jurisprudence and social science -- Contemporary interactions-legal theory and social theory -- Linked futures-jurisprudence and socio-legal studies.

AbstractThe paper explores the possibilities and perils of an interdisciplinary approach to legal studies emerging as an alternative intellectual paradigm to the doctrinal tradition within legal scholarship. The privileged status accorded to the doctrinal tradition within the legal academy is sustained by its continued importance in providing a link between law as a field of intellectual inquiry and law as a field of professional practice. Despite the promise of a more pluralistic intellectual climate within the legal academy, it seems unlikely that an interdisciplinary approach to legal studies will succeed in challenging the preeminence of legal doctrine as the primary source of professional-knowledge claims about law. At the same time, however, any attempt to claim legal studies as a separate field of intellectual inquiry outside the legal academy confronts many of the same doubts about the nature of law as a unitary object of knowledge as the doctrinal tradition from which it seeks to distance itself. The paradox of the legal studies project is that whenever it tries to free itself from the embrace of the doctrinal tradition, it confronts epistemological doubts about the conditions for its own existence. It appears, therefore, that the legal studies project is destined to continue its labours in the shadow of the law.

EU legal studies suffer from a disconnect with social reality. If we need a method, it is one that allows us to reconnect with European societies as a bustle of unsettled forms of life, from both an existential and social perspective. Departing from classic institutional and constitutional approaches to EU law, while endorsing the critical turn in the EU legal studies, I will argue in favour of a new "anti-transcendental" perspective.

"This book presents a set of related studies aimed at showing key points of intersection and common interest between jurisprudence and socio-legal studies, which are otherwise typically considered distinct fields. It reflects and draws on the author's work in these areas over more than four decades. The first half of the book explores theoretical issues surrounding the enterprise of socio-legal research, its current scope and its historical traditions. Some chapters directly compare juristic theory and socio-legal inquiry. Chapters in Part 2 profile a selection of European jurists whose work offers important insights for socio-legal inquiry. Other chapters frame these studies, explore the history of interactions between jurisprudence and socio-legal research, and show points of convergence between these fields that are increasingly important today. A main aim of the book is to show the current urgency of linking and broadening juristic and social scientific interests in law. Internationally oriented, the book will be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of jurisprudence, legal philosophy, sociology of law, socio-legal studies and comparative law. It is suitable as supplementary reading for courses in any of these subjects"--

This paper is devoted to the discussion and critical analysis of the various uses of the term 'legal culture' in recent comparative legal studies. It submits that the application of the concept of legal culture has had no consensually shared approach in comparative law; instead, numerous different ways exist. The main approaches of legal culture in comparative studies have been the use of this concept as (i) background, (ii) interactions around law, and (iii) a sum of attitudes towards law. In addition, the use of this term is even more complicated as certain typical inconsistencies may also be identified. Examples show (i) the confusion of different understandings of legal culture found within the same study; and that (ii) the under-theorisation and (iii) over-theorisation of legal culture can both be regarded as such typical inconsistencies. In conclusion, the paper calls attention to a more restricted, self-reflective and critical application of this term as the prerequisite of an efficient scholarly use.

In the academic year 1939–40, it would have taken a hardy prophet to forecast that the field of international legal studies was destined soon to become a major growing point in American legal education. Yet, for that reason and because it was the last year before World War II registered its impact on law school faculties, students, and even curricula, it provides a useful baseline from which to measure the developments that have since been taking place in this field among American law schools.The law school work offered in 1939–40 which could be fitted within the category of international legal studies was represented by courses and seminars in International Law, Comparative (and Roman) Law, and Conflict of Laws. A brief survey of these offerings will lay bare the grounds for pessimism as to the prospects for progress at that time.