Georges Gurvitch grew up in Russia, but he spent a significant part of his professional life in France, where he succeeded to Émile Durkheim's (1858–1917) chair in sociology at the Sorbonne. Gurvitch, intrigued by the fusion of simultaneous manifestation of law in various forms and at various levels of social interaction, searched for the “real” basis of law. He wanted to develop the concept of “social law” as a law of integration and cooperation.

Gurvitch elaborated on social law in L'idée du droit social (1932). Although reminiscent of Leon Petrazycki's (1867–1931) “intuitive law” and Eugen Ehrlich's (1862–1922) “living law,” Gurvitch's social law was an integral part of his general sociology and, thus, a theoretical construct in its own right. It was also one of the early ...