PodgóRecki, Adam (1925–1998)

Adam Podgórecki was a pioneer of Polish sociology of law after World War II. He received a doctorate in law and a master's degree in sociology at Jagiellonion University in Krakow. Inspired by Leon Petrażycki's (1867–1931) ideas on law and society and Maria Ossowska's (1896–1974) pioneering work in the sociology of morality, he was not a simple follower but creative and critical in testing and applying Petrażycki's concepts. He had broad interests in law, philosophy, ethics, literature, and music.

He joined Warsaw University after the political liberalization in Poland in 1956. In 1972, Podgórecki cofounded the first university department in Poland devoted to sociolegal studies. It was the biggest sociological institute in communist central Europe. He developed a pioneering research program in the sociology of law, and his creative and magnetic personality drew a circle of disciples. He worked and conducted research in a difficult communist environment, hostile to his nonMarxist approach to sociology. When communist authorities expelled him from the university for “antistate academic activity,” he left Poland and, after some time, took a professorship in sociology and anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Podgórecki conducted an extensive program of scholarly research in Polish as well as in English. Among his twelve books published in Polish, especially noteworthy for their original theoretical propositions are his Sociology of Law (1974) and Sociological Theory of Law (1991). Among his fourteen books published in English, many were innovative:Knowledge and Opinion about Law (1973), initiated as a collaborative research project with colleagues from various countries, and others published through the 1990s.

Throughout his research and writing, he tried to build an adequate social theory of law. Podgórecki developed his social theory in opposition to Marxist general theory of law and the state. He stressed the importance of empirical comparative material guided by theoretical hypothesis. Crucial for him was the typology, derived from Petrażycki, of intuitive and official law. Central also in Podgórecki's sociolegal theory was the concept of power and law presented as variables.

Podgórecki also made use of an invented sage, Si Tien. Over the years, he wrote more than fifty volumes where this sage, among other things, spelt out his concept of global ethics. In 1962, he cofounded the Research Committee on the Sociology of the Law of the International Sociological Association, and then the Committee on Sociotechnics. Together with colleagues from around the world, he initiated a program of conferences and comparative research projects, which continue to this day. Until his final days, he was working on a project on the hidden factors of law.