Sociology of Law

Sociology of Law and Sociology

Regarding SL's relation with sociology, Reza Banakar and Max Travers state: “sociology of law can only develop as an empirical discipline if it engages with theoretical and methodological debates in mainstream sociology” (2002: 349). Other scholars also criticize SL, with its specific focus on law, for distancing itself from general sociological debates. Some add to this criticism the claim that SL's destiny is tied to that of sociology as a distinct intellectual discipline. Opponents argue that SL is dependent on a variety of social science and humanist traditions and methodologies not necessarily tied to any single discipline.

From the dominant standpoint, SL appears as a particular specialty in the academic discipline of sociology. As the sociological study of a limited field (law), SL gains its primary research strength from the progress of the larger intellectual discipline of which it is an integral part. At the same time, these academics believe the subdiscipline of SL has the opportunity to contribute special insights to the wider development of sociological inquiries and debates beyond the legal field. Viewed in this way, SL is an application of sociology to legal studies and an effort to advance sociology through studies of law.

To characterize SL simply as a subdiscipline of sociology is, however, controversial for two main reasons. First, in important respects, SL has developed independently of sociology's main lines of disciplinary growth. For example, Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922) and Leon Petrazycki (1867–1931), primary founders of modern sociology of law early in the twentieth century, were jurists. There is little evidence that major sociological theorists of that time significantly influenced their work, even though these theorists shaped the growth of sociology as a discipline. Equally, although SL has been a rich research field, the study of law has been marginal to sociology as an academic discipline. Indeed, mainstream sociology, in this sense, has usually avoided addressing issues about law. Typically, it has addressed some SL concerns indirectly in recognized subbranches of sociology, such as the sociology of deviance, the sociology of administration and organizations, and the sociology of knowledge.

Second, where law has been a significant focus in writings that have contributed powerfully to the disciplinary formation of sociology, legal studies generally appear in this context as something more than a disciplinary subfield. A few of the greatest sociological theorists, especially Max Weber (1864–1920) in Germany and Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) in France at the beginning of the twentieth century, made research on law central to their overall sociological projects. Weber studied law primarily as a major mechanism of rationalization of the modern social world. Durkheim saw law and morality as inseparable foundations of the structures of social solidarity in modern as well as premodern societies.

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