Academic

Zumbansen on Legal Sociology

By Lawrence Solum

Peer Zumbansen (York University - Osgoode Hall Law School) has posted Law?s Knowledge and Law?s Effectiveness: Reflections from Legal Sociology and Legal Theory on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Legal sociology is in a crisis ? or so it is said. The field is not widely represented at Law Faculties today and, the claim goes, is in dire need of a new spirit. Meanwhile, scholars who are working in the area cover a wide array of research questions, ranging from criminology to family law, from urban governance to transitional justice, illustrating thus a fine sensitivity for important and fast evolving areas. This paper argues that indeed our times offer a great host of promising opportunities for legal sociological research. In midst of a truly dramatic economic crisis where anchoring points and orientations have been upset, a broad search for adequate regulatory responses is underway. In this climate of reassessing the lessons of reflexive and responsive law, of legal pluralism and ?law & society? with view to their re-invigoration for our times, legal sociology is itself seemingly undergoing a transformation of its own: today?s research methodology must pay heed to the advances made since Weber, Durkheim, Ehrlich and Gurvitch and translate them into a distinctly cross-disciplinary context, comparative and transnational context.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on June 12, 2009 (boomark / email).