Thick Description

Systems theory, in particular as developed by Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998), is a theory of operatively closed systems that provides an extremely conceptrich description of social phenomena, including law. This intense concern with empirically grounded and consistently used concepts is the specialty of Luhmann's system theory. His methodology of theory building sets the approach apart from all other approaches of sociological theory and places it close to qualitative social science approaches, such as the thick description and grounded theory in qualitative empirical research.

Even if Luhmann started from premises that appear to be vastly different from empirical research, he arrived at an empirical, thick description of society and its law. Luhmann was primarily interested not in law but in the question of how social order was possible, given that chaos seems more likely. He understood his task as a continuation of the Enlightenment project but substituted, for greater scientific and methodological rigor, philosophy with a general sociological theory. The radical translation of the tenets of the Enlightenment into sociological theory led him to systems theory as a neverending conceptual matrix of the conditions for society as it happens. This matrix is complex, thick description because society is complex.

The objective of Luhmann's research, therefore, is not just theory building but “good science.” His overriding concern is the good fit between accurately observed phenomena and the concepts that capture them while maintaining consistently that only theory, not the concepts themselves, provide a basis for a reality check. In this sense, Luhmann's methodology aimed at a scientific universal explanation of society, including its law, which was driven by the jurisprudential experience of the practical importance of tightly fitting concepts. This empirical “grounding” effect can be tested only within the theoretical framework in which the concepts are developed. As a result, Luhmann's theory of operatively closed systems is, in the methodological sense, a thick (concept-rich) universal description of society and its law.

The systems theory approach does not require that researchers start their projects without a clear theoretical direction. The fundamental difference between the systems theory approach and inductive grounded theory or other qualitative approaches is its more serious reflection on the human condition. This provides the researcher with a clear sense of a case-specific and area-specific dense network of empirically grounded concepts.

Luhmann's triangulation of thorough theoretical conceptualization, methodological consistency, and the observed self-description of society found in the autopoietic patterns of the operations of social systems is particularly useful for sociolegal research because of the universality of the legal system and its exceptional [Page 1483]high degree of formalized self-description. But systems theory is crucial for sociolegal research precisely because it is not a dedicated sociolegal research methodology, but a sociological thick description that maps society contextually as a whole, with law, and as wide as people globally communicate with each other.