Suchergebnisse

Can there be such a thing as a European sociology of law? The uncertainties which arise when attempting to answer that straightforward question are the subject of this book, which also overlaps into comparative law, legal history, and legal philosophy. The richness of approaches reflected in the essays (including comparisons with the US) makes this volume a courageous attempt to show the present state of socio- legal studies in Europe and map directions for its future development. Certainly we already know something about the existence of differences in the use and meaning of law within and between the nation states and groups that make up the European Union. They concern the role of judges and lawyers, the use of courts, patterns of delay, contrasts in penal 'sensibilities', or the meanings of underlying legal and social concepts. Still, similarities in 'legal culture' are at least as remarkable in societies at roughly similar levels of political and economic development. The volume should serve as a needed stimulus to a research agenda aimed at uncovering commonalities and divergences in European ways of approaching the law.

Introduction: Studying European Ways of Law -- A - Theorising 'European' Legal Culture. 1. Images of Europe in Sociolegal Traditions ; 2. American and European Ways of Law: Six Entrenched Differences ; 3. La place paradoxale de la culture juridique Americaine dans la mondialisation ; 4. Globalisation and the Rise of Procedural Informalism in Europe and America ; 5. American and European Forms of Social Theory reflecting Social Practice -- B - Re-constructing Europe. 6. 'Cold War Law': Legal Entrepreneurs and the Emergence of a European Legal Field (1945-1965) ; 7. The Transformation of Sub-State Nationalism in Conflicted Societies: the Impact of European Constitutionalism ; 8. Is There the Spirit of the European Laws? Critical Remarks on the EU Constitution-making, Enlargement and Political Culture ; 9. How to Conceptualise Law in European Union Integration Processes? Perspectives from the Literature and Empirical Research -- C - European Styles of Legal Regulation. 10. EU Ways of Governing the Marketing of Pharmaceuticals-a Shift towards more Integration, Better Consumer Protection and Better Regulation? ; 11. Embedded and Disembedded Rationality: Contributions to Global Governance from European and US American Legal Cultures ; 12. Dutch Legal Culture and Technological Transitions-the Impact of Dutch Government Interventions ; 13. Early Intervention and the Cultures of Youth Justice: A Comparison of Italy and Wales.