Sociology 173: Sociology of Law (Fall 2024) (original) (raw)
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Program and Bibliography, Sociology of Law, 2018-2019
Law is often looked at, by jurists and others, as an autonomous field, independent from other domains; moreover, one without any sort of immersion in society. There is, however, by no means a shared consensus about this, as most analysts tend to, on the contrary, envisage law and legal systems, formal or informal, pluralist or not, as responding to the diverse contexts into which they are embedded. Different authors place a different emphasis on what these contexts are: for some, they are mostly economic, for others, cultural, for other social, or even linked to power structures; some others prefer to focus, instead, on their historical background. All do it within sociological templates. In class we shall try to carry an initial systematic and interactive study and analysis of legal institutions and forms, always from a sociological perspective. We will look at both international and national productions on this front, with as wide a disciplinary scope as possiblewithin context and in the chronological order of their conjunctures of emergence.
Law’s Future(s)
Law permeates every aspect of social life. Students who major or minor in socio-legal studies-an interdisciplinary program within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences-focus on fascinating questions that strike at the heart of modern society: How does law operate in people's everyday lives? How do social institutions shape law? How are social institutions shaped by law? How does law empower and constrain individuals, groups, organizations and communities? Students majoring in socio-legal studies often pursue a legal career, but the issues addressed in the major are relevant to all fields of endeavor. Socio-Legal Studies Bachelor of Arts Major Requirements
Introduction: Moving Towards an Economic Sociology of Law
2013
This special issue represents a milestone in our on-going journeys towards aǹ economic sociology of law' ± that is, shared understandings of how and why one might use sociologically-inspired approaches (analytical, empirical, and normative) to investigate relationships between legal and economic phenomena; and of what might be gained and lost in the process.
On the Sociology of Law in Economic Relations
Social & Legal Studies, 2021
A focus on law’s role in economic activities was central to many of the classical sociologists, and it remains a key theme in the sociology of law, although no longer central. The view of capitalism as a market economy is reflected in formalist perspectives on economics, law and even sociology, and limits these understandings. Economic sociologists and institutional economists have examined the extensive institutionalisation of economic activity due to the shift to corporate capitalism since the last part of the 19th century, and have focused on law’s role in these processes. The neo-liberal phase of capitalism since the 1970s brought a renewed emphasis on property rights and market-based management, but accompanied by an enormous growth of new forms of regulation, often of a hybrid public-private character, leading to a new view of law as reflective or responsive, very different from traditional formalist perspectives. We argue that law’s role in the economy can be better understoo...
Századvég Edition
Through its function, law provides normative prescriptions for human behaviour, i.e. it prohibits certain types of behaviour and permits others in a given situation. The fundamental task of jurisprudence is therefore to clarify the meaning of the interrelationships between normative prescriptions and thus to ensure that there are no contradictions in meaning between the many thousands and tens of thousands of legal norms. Only in this way is it possible that the legal rules to be followed in everyday life fulfil their function and that legal certainty is not endangered. Substantive jurisprudence analyses and develops the totality of legal concepts that ensure the internal conceptual coherence of a field of law and constantly monitors the coherence of the legal norms required for specific life situations. From now on, depending on the different legal concepts to varying degrees, the consistency of the specific legal norms and legal concepts with the general principles of justice is also included in the consideration. This approach thus moves in the dimension of normative conceptual coherence. On a broader level, the philosopher of law does the same when, apart from analysing substantive law, he deals with the content of the principles of justice and their relationship to each other, and from this establishes requirements for the conditions of a just legal order. However, law, although it fulfils its function in a normative dimension, is a social phenomenon like other fields of activity that fulfil a social function, e.g. the economy, art, science, politics, etc., and any legal phenomenon can be studied from the point of view of facticity, just like other social phenomena. This is the essence of the sociological approach to law, which can be formulated in contrast to the approach of theoretical jurisprudence or legal philosophy as a field of analysis of social facticity and causality or effects. For example, while the substantive law of civil law examines a legal regulation on a pledge or surety from the point of view of how these contractual securities fit into the framework of existing contract law as a whole, the sociological approach to law asks how often pledges or sureties are used as contractual securities in everyday contractual practice, from the point of view of the absence of contradictions of meaning. Or which social interests and which social disadvantages have favoured the emergence of this form of pledge and surety in everyday contractual practice, and which social interests would be served by alternative regulations in this area? In the sociology of law, one therefore moves from the normative dimension to the factual dimension, to the dimension of conflicts of interest, social causes and effects, when analysing legal norms and legal phenomena. Looking at sociological studies and the various lines of research in the sociology of law in this approach, one can distinguish between a narrower and a broader understanding of the sociology of law. The sociology of law in the narrower sense still focuses on legal norms like the thematic legal sciences, and it is no coincidence that the sociology of law developed historically in the last decades of the 19th century. The sociology of law in the narrower sense, like the theoretical legal sciences, is concerned with legal norms and legal provisions, but with their actual consistency rather than with normative-conceptual coherence and possible logical contradictions. Or does it ask which social interests and political forces have shaped the legal norms under study and which political forces serve the dominance of which political forces in social struggles and which social groups are subordinated and disadvantaged in power by the legal norms under study?
1. The case for Law and Economics: beyond disciplinary Nirvanas?
The Law and Economics movement has reached in recent years a widespread diffusion 1. As Mercuro and Medema (1997) have pointed out," Law and Economics has developed from a small and rather esoteric branch within economics and law to a substantial movement that has helped to both redefine the study of law and expose economics to the important implications of the legal environment" 2. While the standard Law and Economics approach refers typically to legal rules 3, recent developments have been concerned with a more ...