The Economic Sociology of Labour Law

Drawing on the work of Max Weber, this article considers the utility of an approach to the study of labour law, which it calls the economic sociology of labour law (ESLL). It identifies the contract for work as the key legal institution in the field, and the primary focus of scholarly analysis. Characterizing the act of contracting for work as an example of what Weber called economic social action oriented to the legal order, it proposes that Weber's notion of the labour constitution be used to map the context within which contracting for work takes place. And it argues that, in comparison to traditional socio‐legal approaches, ESLL has the significant advantage of allowing for account to be taken of the individual and commercial, as well as the social and legal, elements of contracting for work.     

Spectres of Transnationalism: Changing Terrains of Sociology of Law

The growth of 'legal transnationalism'– that is, the reach of law across nation-state borders and the impact of external political and legal pressures on nation-state law – undermines the main foundations of sociology of law. Modern sociology of law has assumed an 'instrumentalist' view of law as an agency of the modern directive state, but now it has to adjust to the state's increasingly complex regulatory conditions. The kind of convergence theory that underpins analysis of much legal transnationalism is inadequate for socio-legal theory, and old ideas of 'law' and 'society' as the foci of sociology of law are no longer appropriate. Socio-legal theory should treat law as a continuum of unstable, competing authority claims. Instead of taking 'society' as its reference point, it should conceptualize the contrasting types of regulatory needs of the networks of community (often not confined by nation-state boundaries) that legal transnationalism addresses.     

The Concept of Law Revised—Directives and Norms in the Perspectives of a New Legal Realism

Legal theory usually distinguishes only two kinds of legal realism: the American and the Scandinavian. Another school of this theoretical perspective is German legal realism, which refers to scholars like Ihering, Weber, and Schelsky. According to German legal realism, the author outlines what legal theory can do to persuade modern jurisprudence to face the social reality of law, conceived as institutionalized normative communication. The latter always occurs with reference to already valid and effectively operative legal norms which are used in an established, normatively binding legal practice in a given regional society.     

John R. Commons and Max Weber: The Foundations of an Economic Sociology of Law

This article underlines contemporary economic sociology's lack of interest – until recently – in legal phenomena, unlike the close attention paid by two historic figures in ‘economic sociology’, Max Weber and John R. Commons, to the relationships between law and economy. It argues that to grasp fully the importance of the legal dimension in socio‐economic analysis, we must return to their foundational insights. However, they particularly stress differences between Weber and Commons as to the unity or heterogeneity of law and the economy, the role of ethics, the search for an all‐encompassing approach in the construction of ideal‐types, the various forms of constraint that characterize law (whether psychological, economic, or physical), and the distinction between state law and non‐state law. The latter element is why the authors argue that due consideration for legal plurality should be a central thread in any sociological analysis of the interplay between law and the economy.     

Interdisciplinarity and the Authority Paradigm: Should Law Be Taken Seriously by Scientists and Social Scientists?

This article questions whether those outside law should take law seriously as an intellectual discipline capable of contributing to the development of epistemological thinking in the natural and social sciences. The discipline is approached from a diachronic and synchronic position with emphasis on the civil law tradition. It will be shown that the governing paradigm in legal studies has always been the 'authority paradigm', which results in law being closer to theology than to the social sciences. Its principal actors (judges) make assertions free from the normal constraints of scientific method; accordingly, the idea of a 'legal science' (imported into the common law tradition after 1846) must be treated with great caution. It is not a science dedicated to enquiring about the nature of the physical world, society or social relations. Its epistemological development remains trapped in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: thus, as a discipline, law has little to offer other social sciences.     

The sociology of the sociology of law: A view from economics

The sociology of law appears to be a weak field in the United States, in comparison to other indisciplinary fields of legal study, notably economic analysis of law. Although American legal sociologists have done important empirical work, particularly on the litigation process and on the legal profession, the focus of American sociology of law has been narrow, theoretically limited, and, empirically, limited in both scope and method. These deficiencies may reflect the methodological limitations of Max Weber, the most influential figure in the history of sociology in general and sociology of law in particular. The failure of legal sociologists to borrow theoretical and empirical tools from sociologically minded economists such as Gary Becker is especially regrettable, and may be due to inaccurate perceptions of the political valence of economic analysis of law, sociology's traditional skepticism about the knowledge claims of other disciplines, professional envy, and misunderstanding of the economists' conception of rational choice.     

马克斯·韦伯法律社会学中的方法论问题

作为其全部社会理论的一个组成部分,马克斯·韦伯的法律社会学是建立在一套较为系统的社会科学方法论基础之上的。正是根据这一方法论以及具体的理想类型方法,韦伯提出了法秩序的社会学概念,对法律制度进行了类型学分析,并对法律制度进行了比较研究。从根本上说,韦伯是站在外部观察者的立场上对法律制度进行探究的,但是他始终无法从根本上摆脱他所反对的价值判断。     

贝克的风险社会理论及其启示——评《风险社会》和《世界风险社会》

乌尔里希·贝克的风险社会理论是一种重视制度面向的社会学批判理论,其认识论基础是反思的现实主义,其理论预设是等级秩序的存在.中国以一种特殊的方式开始进入风险社会.风险社会理论透视出中国在现代化反思能力、法律系统、科学理性和社会理性的互动、环境法基本原则方面存在一些问题.     

The Legal Community: Judges, Lawyers, Officials and Clerks in the Writing of Europe

This article argues that EU legal studies whould pay more attention to the legal discourse that sustains the conceptions of law and legal politics underlying European law. Drawing loosely on Bourdieu's concept of 'legal fields', it offers a social and intellectual reconstruction of European legal thinking by way of empirical analysis of European legal writing. The article argues that the autonomy, technicality and specificity of European law should be seen at least in part as consequences of the social and professional structure of the community of EU laywers.     

融贯论、道德实在与法律——一个基于内在实在主义的整合

不同的真理理论导致不同的法律方法论。符合论实在主义的哲学会导致哲学的和自然主义的法律发现,而融贯论则是规范分析和法律解释的基础。不少哲学家认为没有脱离融贯论的符合论(如普特南)。但同时,从真理的客观性维度讲,融贯论只能保障认知的客观性,而不能获得形而上的客观性。融贯论的结果必然是相对主义。因此,法律哲学的认识论选择必然是折中的,这个折中的认识论可以由普特南的内在实在主义来承担,而内在实在主义将最终引向包容的法律实证主义。     

现代社会的法律自治——韦伯论现代法律的自治性

韦伯的社会学是作为包括法律科学在内的整个社会科学的基础而出现的,为我们理解法律现象提供了一个基于社会理论的＂外在视角＂。以韦伯的法律社会学为基础考察法律自治性的社会理论依据,可以为我们理解包括法律自治在内的现代法律现象提供一把钥匙。     

Law's Social Forms: A Powerless Approach to the Sociology of Law

Since the law and society movement in the 1960s, the sociology of law in the United States has been dominated by a power/inequality approach. Based on a sociological distinction between the forms and substances of law, this article outlines a “powerless” approach to the sociology of law as a theoretical alternative to the mainstream power/inequality approach. Following Simmel and the Chicago School of sociology, this new approach analyzes the legal system not by its power relations and patterns of inequality, but by its social forms, or the structures and processes that constitute the legal system's spatial outlook and temporality. Taking a radical stance on power, this article is not only a retrospective call for social theory in law and society research, but also a progressive effort to move beyond US‐centric sociolegal scholarship and to develop new social science tools that explain a larger variety of legal phenomena across the world.     

中国的法律社会学研究

中国的法律社会学研究自1980年代复兴以来,学者们建立起了法律社会学的基本理论框架,并结合社会实践开展了一系列研究,取得了较为丰硕的成果。法律社会学与社会学法学存在称谓之争,但近期研究以法律社会学的提法为主流。法律社会学的基本理论包括法律社会学的定义、研究对象、理论特征、研究框架、研究的意义等,学者们就此进行了深入探讨,对法律社会学的方法论更是投入了较多的精力。应当有重点地加强新时期的法律社会学研究。     

The Concept of Jurisprudence*

Abstract. The first part of this article contains (i) considerations as to the relationship between jurisprudence and legal dogmatics, legal philosophy, and sociology of law; (ii) considerations about the status of jurisprudence both as a meta- and an object-theory. These lead to the suggestion that jurisprudence should be defined as a general juristic theory of law and legal science. In the second part, the character and elements of this definition are explained systematically. The article's main thesis is that jurisprudence is not distinguished from legal philosophy and sociology of law by its subject or its method, but by the specifically juristic research aspect or perspective it is based upon.     

The Pull of the Policy Audience

Much research in the sociology of law seeks to play a role informing policymakers about the effects of particular policy initiatives and to participate in debates about how to use law as an instrument of public policy. The paper examines the origins of policy studies in legal realism and describes the way contemporary law and society scholars selectively appropriate aspects of the realist heritage while ignoring others. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which those scholars separate policy from politics and operate as if policy focused research were not itself political. The paper traces the pull of the policy audience and the separation of policy from politics through a close examination of several widely respected examples of sociolegal scholarship. In addition, an effort is made to assess the impact that the desire to speak to the powerful has had in shaping what constitutes acceptable scientific practice and in shaping the domain of study. The paper concludes by arguing that the sociology of law would benefit from an effort to interrogate the basic premises which inform policy debate and that such an interrogation itself requires greater distance from the policy audience.     

需要何种法律信任

"法律信任"对"法律信仰"概念的修正,实质走向了一个韦伯式概念,其理论本身在很大程度上也是韦伯命题的理论映照。这一韦伯式的"法律信任"概念,无论是在理论上还是在现实上都面临着巨大的困难,这种双重困难指向同一问题:"法律信任"如何可能?由此,立基于韦伯式的形式法律理论之上,不可能产生真正的"法律信任"。"法律信任"概念要想有意义,就必须建立在一种更具实质性的法律理论之上。     

Balance y perspectivas de la reforma constitucional penal en méxico a cinco años de su publicación

The criminal constitutional reform in Mexico means cultural and epistemological rupture directed and supported by the realism and the legal guarantism. After the publication of the criminal constitutional reform on June 18, 2008, more than four years have passed, however, less than the 30 percent of the 31 States of the Republic and a Federal District, observe and apply this reform in a comprehensive way. Unfortunately, the obstacles are identified in: reluctance to change legal paradigms, i.e., conservation of the formalistic legal exegetical tradition through the mixed inquisitional criminal system; Lack of infrastructure, human and material; Absence of harmonization of laws, proposes the creation of a unique code of criminal procedure to see how effective and efficient the procedural criminal accusatory system oral and alternative means for dispute resolution, which guarantees the principles: presumption of innocence, due process of law, immediacy, advertising, contradiction and equality.     

Labour Constitutions and Occupational Communities: Social Norms and Legal Norms at Work

This paper considers the interaction of legal norms and social norms in the regulation of work and working relations, observing that, with the contraction of collective bargaining, this is a matter that no longer attracts the attention that it deserves. Drawing upon two concepts from sociology – Max Weber's ‘labour constitution’ and Seymour Martin Lipset's ‘occupational community’ – it focuses on possibilities for the emergence, within groups of workers, of shared normative beliefs concerning ‘industrial justice’ (Selznick); for collective solidarity and agency; for the transformation of shared beliefs into legally binding norms; and for the enforcement of those norms. If labour law is currently in ‘crisis’, then a promising route out of the crisis, we argue, is for the law to recover its procedural focus, facilitating and encouraging these processes.     

Sociological interpretations of legal development

This paper seeks to outline some ways in which sociological inquiry has helped to interpret general processes of legal development. It comments on a few aspects of a vast subject. Furthermore, it was commissioned in a specific context of debate: as part of an agenda of discussion of the relative merits and potential of sociological and economic analyses of law. Hence, to provide a setting for what I try to argue about the character and value of sociological interpretations of legal change, it seems appropriate to preface those arguments with some general ideas about the nature of sociological inquiries in legal contexts and about perceived contrasts between the orientation of these inquiries and what I take to be certain orientations in economic analysis of law. Accordingly this paper is in two parts. The first offers a few prefatory remarks on the character of theoretically guided sociological inquiries about law (sociology of law). The second discusses various kinds of interpretation of legal development, which have been offered from the perspectives of sociology of law.     

A qualitative study of the impact of law clinics on students’ perceptions of emotional labour expectations

The benefits to students of being given some form of clinical legal education are well documented. Research has been conducted in the area of legal education and emotion, emotional intelligence and clinical legal education. There have also been studies which explore emotional labour in the legal profession. However, there is currently no research into the role of clinical legal education in advancing law students’ understanding of emotional labour expectations in the legal profession. This Legal Education Research Network (LERN) funded project aims to fill that gap by examining the contribution law clinics make to the development of law students’ emotion management skills in preparation for entry into the legal profession. The project seeks to achieve this by considering the changes to law students’ perceptions of emotional labour expectations as a result of undertaking this type of clinical legal education. The paper offers insights into the types of emotional labour as well as the perceived drivers of emotional labour, which are regarded as necessary to fulfil the role of the solicitor. The paper will also analyse the potential consequences of performing emotional labour identified by participants.