Sociology of law

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The sociology of law or legal sociology is often returned as the sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law as well as sociology. Still others regard it neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own adjustment within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be referred without quotation to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a bracket of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law & justice as fundamental institutions of the basic lines of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative sorting of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as controls of consensus, coercion and social control".

Irrespective of if sociology of law is defined as a sub-discipline of sociology, an approach within legal studies or a field of research in its own right, it maintains intellectually dependent mainly on the traditions, methods and theories of mainstream sociology and, to a lesser extent, on other social sciences such as social anthropology, political science, social policy, criminology, psychology, and geography. As such, it reflects social theories and employs social scientific methods to discussing law, legal institutions and legal behavior.

More specifically, sociology of law consists of various approaches to the study of law in society, which empirically examine and theorise the interaction between law, legal, non-legal institutions and social factors. Areas of socio-legal inquiry include the social developing of legal institutions, forms of social control, legal regulation, the interaction between legal cultures, the social construction of legal issues, legal profession and the explanation between law and social change.

More than often sociology of law benefits from research conducted within other fields such(a) as comparative law, critical legal studies, jurisprudence, legal theory, law and economics and law and literature. Its object and that of jurisprudence focused on institutional questions conditioned by social and political situations converge - for example, in the interdisciplinary dominions of criminology and of economic analysis of law - contributing to stretch out the power to direct or develop of legal norms but also devloping their impacts a matter of scientific concern.

Sociological approaches to the study of law

The sociology of law became clearly imposing as an academic field of learning and empirical research after theWorld War. After World War II, the study of law was non central in sociology, although some well-known sociologists did write about the role of law in society. In the name of Talcott Parsons, for instance, law is conceived as an essential mechanism of social control. In response to the criticisms that were developed against functionalism, other sociological perspectives of law emerged. Critical sociologists, developed a perspective of law as an instrument of power. However, other theorists in the sociology of law, such as Philip Selznick, argued that modern law became increasingly responsive to a society's needs and had to be approached morally as well. Still other scholars, almost notably the American sociologist Donald Black, developed a resolutely scientific picture of law on the basis of a paradigm of pure sociology. As "pure science" sociology of law is not concentrated on offenders, but on the functions or consequences of disorder, violence and criminality, approached as products of the physical and social environment determined by law, morality, education and all other forms of social organization. In turn, as ´´applied science´´ this is the focused on the a thing that is caused or delivered by something else of concrete problems, which is why - precondition the theoretical and methodological shortcomings of the study of causes and effects especially in crime-related things - the attention of contemporary sociologists is absorbed in the identification and analysis of risk factors e.g., turning children and youth in potential offenders and protective factors tending to bring approximately "normal" personalities and ´"good" community members Equally broad in orientation, but again different, is the autopoietic systems view of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who proposed law or "the legal system" as one of the ten function systems see functional differentiation of society.

All collective human life is directly or indirectly shaped by law. Law is like knowledge, an essential and all-pervasive fact of the social condition.

Social philosopher Jürgen Habermas disagrees with Luhmann and argues that the law can throw a better job as a 'system' institution' by representing more faithfully the interests of everyday people in the 'lifeworld'. Yet another sociological theory of law and lawyers is that of Pierre Bourdieu and his followers, who see law as a social field in which actors struggle for cultural, symbolic and economic capital and in so doing develop the reproductive fine habitus of the lawyer. In several continental European countries empirical research in sociology of law developed strongly from the 1960s and 1970s. In Poland the work of Adam Podgórecki and his associates often influenced by Petrazycki's ideas was especially notable; in Sweden empirical research in sociology of law in this period was pioneered especially by Per Stjernquist, and in Norway by Vilhelm Aubert.

In more recent years, a very wide range of theories has emerged in the sociology of law as a or situation. of the proliferation of theories in sociology at large. Among the recent influences can be mentioned the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas, feminism, postmodernism and deconstruction, neo-Marxism, and behaviorism. The variety of theoretical influences in the sociology of law has also marked the broader law and society field. The multi-disciplinary law and society field retains very popular, while the disciplinary speciality field of the sociology of law is also "better organized than ever in institutional and able respects".

Law and Society is an American movement, which was established after theWorld War through the initiative mainly of sociologists who had a vested interest in the study of law. The rationale of the Law and Society movement is subtly summed up in two short sentences by Lawrence Friedman: "Law is a massive vital presence in the United States. this is the too important to be left to lawyers". Its founders believed that the "study of law and legal institutions in their social context could be constituted as a scholarly field distinguished by its commitment to interdisciplinary dialogue and multidisciplinary research methods". As such, “the basic condition underlying this work is that law is not autonomous — that is, self-employed person of society.” Whereas “conventional legal scholarship looks inside the legal system toquestions of society,” the “law and society movement looks outside, and treats the degree of autonomy, if any, as an empirical question.” Moreover, law and society scholarship expresses a deep concern with the affect that laws have on society one time they enter into force, a concern that is either ignored or under addressed in conventional legal scholarship. The establishment of the Law and Society Association in 1964 and of the Law and Society Review in 1966 guaranteed continuity in the scholarly activities of the Law and Society movement and lets its members to influence legal education and policy-making in the US.

On one view, the leading difference between the sociology of law and Law and Society is that the latter does not limit itself theoretically or methodologically to sociology and tries instead to accommodate insights from all social science disciplines. "Not only does it lets a home for sociologists and social anthropologists and political scientists with an interest in law, it also tries to incorporate psychologists and economists who study law." From another an essential or characteristic part of something abstract. of view, both sociology of law and Law and Society should be seen as multi-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary enterprises although sociology of law has special ties to the methods, theories and traditions of sociology.

During the 1970s and 1980s a number of original empirical studies were conducted by Law and Society scholars on conflict and dispute resolution. In his early work, William Felstiner, for example, focused on selection ways to solve conflicts avoidance, mediation, litigation etc.. Together with Richard Abel and Austin Sarat, Felstiner developed the idea of a disputes pyramid and the formula "naming, blaming, claiming", which refers to different stages of conflict resolution and levels of the pyramid.

The sociology of law is normally distinguished from sociological jurisprudence. As a form of jurisprudence, the latter is not primarily concerned with contributing directly to social science and instead engages directly with juristic debates involving legal practice and legal theory. Sociological jurisprudence focuses juristic attention on variation in legal institutions and practices and on the social advice and effects of legal ideas. It draws intellectual resources from social theory and relies explicitly on social science research in apprehension evolving forms of regulation and the cultural significance of law.

In its pioneer form it was developed in the United States by Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound. It was influenced by the work of pioneer legal sociologists, such as the Austrian jurist Eugen Ehrlich and the Russian-French sociologist Georges Gurvitch.

Although distinguishing between different branches of the social scientific studies of law allows us to explain and analyse the developing of the sociology of law in version to mainstream sociology and legal studies, it can be argued that such potentially artificial distinctions are not necessarily fruitful for the development of the field as whole. On this view, for the social scientific studies of law to transcend the theoretical and empirical limits that currently define their scope, they need to go beyond artificial distinctions.