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France

One may best understand the connections between law, justice, and society in France through the history of relations between law and the social sciences, especially sociology.

Durkheim and Early Law and Society History

French sociologists' interest in law dates to the end of the nineteenth century when Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) established sociology as the social science. Without qualifying his approach as legal-sociology, Durkheim in La division du travail social (1893,The Division of Labor in Society, 1933) used law to understand the forms of social solidarity. Furthermore, the sociological journal that he founded,l'Année Sociologique, accommodated, since its first issues, an important place for works on law.

At the same time, certain law professors became interested in sociology and the works of Durkheim. One of them, Léon Duguit (1859–1928), maintained an interest in a sociological theory of law, which permitted adjusting lawmaking to social reality. Others, such as Edouard Lambert (1866–1947) or Maurice Hauriou (1856–1929), demonstrated a “sociological curiosity” (Carbonnier 1978: 126).

Nevertheless, relations between the two disciplines have been difficult because they did not have the same status. At the beginning of the twentieth century, law was a well-established discipline while sociology, lacking a specific university course of study, did not have a comparable academic prestige. Jurists seldom allowed sociologists access to their field so that relations have been distinguished more by competition than by cooperation. Throughout the twentieth century, this competition impeded sociology of law teaching and, then later, publication of sociolegal research. As a result, one can speak of parallel histories. The competition is evident both in the appropriation of law as an object of knowledge—law professors feel that only they have the right to speak of law—and in the question of who is most competent to teach a sociological approach to the law. More recently, contributions from other disciplines have given rise to new ways of thinking about law and society.

Gurvitch and His Disciples after World War II

Just after World War II, conditions appeared more favorable for cooperation between sociologists and jurists. The sociologist Georges Gurvitch (1894–1965) was active in the first research center in sociology, where the discipline was established. Gurvitch argued that sociology of law must have an important place in the academic construction of sociology and taught a course in juridical sociology at the Sorbonne. As founder of the Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, he invited two legal historians, Henri Lévy-Bruhl (1884–1964) and Gabriel Le Bras (1891–1970), to his editorial board. These two historians advocated a science of law open to sociology. Sociologists knew these men, and they even served on the editorial board of l'Année sociologique.

Le Bras, a specialist in canon law and its history, contributed to the development of the sociology of religion and published in many sociological journals. In his attempt to establish a science of law, Lévy-Bruhl used sociology to understand the social fundamentals of law. He taught Roman law at the Sorbonne Law Faculty in Paris and juridical sociology in the social sciences department at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Because of Lévy-Bruhl's interest in criminal analysis, Gurvitch convinced Lévy-Bruhl to write the chapter on criminal sociology in Gurvitch's Traité de sociologie (1958). Finally, Lévy-Bruhl created a juridical and criminal sociology division at the University of Paris law faculty. After his death, other law professors at Paris continued with juridical sociology.

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