Talk:Sociology of law

comment
This is less than a stub and badly needs to be expanded. --Johannes 19:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

sociology of law article outline
Based on some sociology of law texts, I created an outline for a sociology of law article. I'm including some of the outline in the article now. I plan to start writing some summary content for some of the sections. Comments? --Reswik 18:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 16:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment
Almost, four years after Johannes left the message below, the section on the sociology of law is finally expanded and given some structure. But much is left to be done. The section on the Founders needs more substance while the sections on legal pluralism, feminism and systems theory remain to be developed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Banakar (talk • contribs) 22:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Biographical material; not directly relevant for history section
Renato Treves kept faith with a Weberian and Kelsenian vision of sociology of law, as distinct from legal science. He advocated empirical research as a means of testing theories critically and favoured open as opposed to closed social portraits of law. Primarily, he argued in favour of a perspectivist and relativistic vision of law and society, combating all kinds of absolutism in both science and politics, from a liberal socialist stance that he upheld in many of his writings.

Jean Carbonnier, the successor to Georges Gurvitch’s chair in Sorbonne, represented the French legal sociology within the international community of socio-legal scholars for more than a half a century. André-Jean Arnaud writes that although Cabonnier was an ardent supporter of the sociology of law (he supported both the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) and the establishment of the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), he nonetheless regarded legal sociology as an “auxiliary science”. Arnaud adds that Carbonnier considered “nonlaw” as the essence of social life: “lawsuits were a pathology. In this mood, he directed his attention to custom, case law and equity. However as a jurist, he considered himself involved in the social system in which he had to play a role, although with some scepticism, not believing in perfection, but deeming that the virtues of liberalism can stimulate legal evolution sufficiently to answer social necessities”.

Philip Selznick, jurist and legal sociologists, is professor emeritus of law and society at the University of California, Berkeley. A noted author in organizational theory, sociology of law and public administration, Selznick's work has been groundbreaking in several fields in such books as The Moral Commonwealth, TVA and the Grass Roots, and Leadership in Administration.

Vilhelm Aubert was an influential Norwegian jurist and Professor of sociology at the University of Oslo between 1963 and 1988. He was one of the co-founders of the Norwegian Institute for Social Research in 1950. He contributed greatly to the establishment of the sociology of law in the Nordic countries and his pioneering empirical study of the Norwegian Housemaid Act remains one of the important pieces of early research in the sociology of law. In this study, together with his two collaborators, Eckhoff and Sveri, Aubert “ascertained discrepancies between ideals as expressed in the statute and actual working conditions. The law had few consequences on actual behavior, but the Act nevertheless functioned as a sociocultural symbol. indicating that values of labor protection were widely accepted. Although a penal clause was attached to the law, as the custom is, the conditions for its use were such as to prevent its application in practice. It was a typical legislative compromise, unrelated to the achievement of manifest goals. The idea of latent functions presented itself’ (Aubert 1989a:13). The widespread mistake that the passing of a law in parliament also meant that it was implemented in practice according to intention, or that Acts often function to give the impression that things are also changing in reality, became leitmotifs in Aubert’s work. In this work he found that ’Merton’s paradigm for functional analysis was very useful’ (Aubert l981: 13)”.

Adam Podgórecki is an internationally renowned legal sociologist and one of the founders of the the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL). He carried out a systematic programme of socio-legal research throughout his academic life, wrote and published widely in both Polish and English and developed a unique socio-legal line of inquiry which can be traced back to Leon Petrazycki’s theory of “intuitive law”. According to Adam Czarnota, Podgorecki developed his social theory “in opposition to the Marxist theory of law and the state. He stressed the importance of empirical comparative material guided by theoretical hypothesis. Crucial for him was the typology, derived from Petrazycki, of intutitive and official law”.

Mainstream sociology and sociology of law, past and today
The study of law played a significant role in the formation of classical sociology and social anthropology. The sociological studies of law have, however, been neglected within recent sociological research and teaching. Mainstream sociology continues to neglect law in spite of the fact that law’s normative role in guiding action and shaping relationships has been increasing as societies become ethno-culturally more diverse and socio-politically more complex. It is, therefore, argued that mainstream sociology has more to learn from studying law in contemporary society, than when Durkheim famously described law as the "visible symbol" of social solidarity.

The Section on the Sociology of Law in Britain
I have edited and separated from each other the sections on Socio-Legal Studies and the Sociology of Law in Britain. In my opinion, the section on the Sociology of Law in Britain is too long for this article. It should either be cut down in size or, preferably, be taken out all together and used to start a new entry on the Sociology of Law in Britain. One final point, this subsection does not sufficiently reflect the recent developments and research.

Constitutional law
Contribution of Sociological law to law as a social phenomenon Eusebia Misango (talk) 10:41, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Political Sociology
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