Germany

Tradition

German sociology of law goes back to the 1920s to Max Weber (1864–1920) and his fundamental Rechtssoziologie. A later important author, especially on rights, religion, punishment, and crime, is Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). Still later, Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998), with his Legitimation durch Verfahren (Legitimation through Process, 1969), led to an ongoing debate on law and procedural justice (Prozeduralisierung) and the autopoiesis of law, also discussed in terms of systems theory. Other important German sociologists included Theodor Geiger (1891–1952), René König (1906–1992), and Heinrich Popitz (1925–2002). However, in Germany, Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), Robert Merton (1910–2002), and Michel Foucault (1926–1984) had little influence as sociologists of law.

Other German scholars who developed a sociologically oriented jurisprudence, such as Rudolf von Jhering (1818–1892), Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922), and Hugo Sinzheimer (1875–1945), are, like Geiger and the Scandinavian Uppsala School, almost forgotten and did not form part of a specific German or European professional sociolegal consciousness.

Associations and Institutions

Despite a 100-year tradition and the birth of sociology infused with law, sociology of law is a border area in sociology and a fringe subject for legal rights. In Germany, there exists no scientific sociology of law community with an established association or elaborate academic visibility comparable to the Law and Society Association in the United States. Rather, there is a weakly tied circle of lawyers, sensitized in sociological thinking and informed about certain issues, and another group, consisting of sociologists interested in law. Both groups shift in the no-man's land between sociological jurisprudence and legal sociology. They are homeless minds in the landscape of German universities, outlaws in legal faculties and outsiders in the social sciences. Qualification in both subjects is unusual, and most have other responsibilities in teaching and research as well.

German sociologists of law have been, since 1972, organized in the Sektion Rechtssoziologie in the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) and, since 1976, in the Vereinigung für Rechtssoziologie, originally founded as an association of university law teachers. There is substantial cooperation between the Sektion and Vereinigung, especially in annual meetings and scientific conventions. Members elect officers for two years, and some reelection is possible. Although some scholars have dual membership, those who suggested plans for an organizational fusion were unsuccessful.

During the late 1960s and the 1970s, during efforts at academic consolidation of sociology, the institutional beginnings of sociology of law were inspired by the idea of jurisprudence as a social science and by the intention to make sociology of law, in the setting of integrated legal study (Einstufige Juristenausbildung), an obligatory part of the German legal education. This period also saw the founding of professorships and sociology of law institutes. Chairs with the name legal sociology were installed at law and less often at social science faculties (university departments). The first institutes were the Institut für Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstatsachenforschung, founded at the Free University (FU) law faculty in Berlin (1964), and the Arbeitskreis für Rechtssoziologie at the University of Cologne. By the 1980s, centers for sociology of law study and research had followed at the Universities of Stuttgart, Freiburg, Konstanz, and Munich. After German reunification (1991), an institute was created at the University of Halle in the former East Germany.

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