Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:06:21.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Power, culture and method in comparative law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2009

Reza Banakar
Reza Banakar*
Affiliation:
Professor, School of Law, University of Westminster, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This review essay draws on a recently edited handbook by Esin Örücü and David Nelken to reflect on the methodological concerns and challenges of comparative law and sociolegal research. It argues that the contextualisation of laws should be regarded as the indispensable methodological characteristic of all comparative studies of law that aspire to transcend the understanding of law as a body of rules and doctrine. It further argues that although the cultural perspective facilitates contextualisation of the law, a cultural understanding is neither a precondition for undertaking comparative legal research nor necessarily the correct approach under all circumstances; for certain aspects of law and legal behaviour need not be conceptualised in cultural terms. The essay concludes by proposing that the combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches could provide a meta-methodological framework within which specific comparative techniques can be employed. Such a framework will enable comparatists and sociolegal researchers to account for how law interacts with, and simultaneously manifests itself at, the macro-, micro- and the intermediary meso-levels of society over time.

Type
Review essay
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 69 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allott, Anthony (1980) The Limits of Law. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Banakar, Reza (1994) Rättens dilemma – Om konflikthantering i ett mångkulturellt samhälle [Conflict Management in a Multicultural Society]. Lund: Bokbox.Google Scholar
Banakar, Reza (2004) ‘When Do Rights Matter?’ in Halliday, Simon and Schmitt, Patrick (eds) Human Rights Brought Home. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 165–84.Google Scholar
Banakar, Reza (2008a) ‘Whose Experience is the Measure of Justice’, Legal Ethics 2(10): 209–22. An e-copy is available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1323407.Google Scholar
Banakar, Reza (2008b) ‘The Politics of Legal Cultures’, Retfærd: The Nordic Journal of Law and Justice 53: 151–175. An e-copy is available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1323371.Google Scholar
Banakar, Reza (2009) ‘Law Through Sociology’s Looking Glass: Conflict and Competition in Sociological Studies of Law’ in Denis, Ann and Kalekin-Fishman, Devorah (eds) The New ISA Handbook in Contemporary International Sociology: Conflict, Competition, Cooperation. London: Sage, 58–73. An e-copy is available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1327025.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotterrell, Roger (2006) Law, Culture and Society. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
De cruz, Peter (1995/2007) Comparative Law in a Changing World. London: Routledge-Cavendish.Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves and Garth, Bryant G. (1996) Dealing in Virtue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Donahue, Charles (2006) ‘Comparative Law before the Code Napoleon’ in Reimann, Mathias and Zimmermann, Reinhard (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–32.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Eugen (1912/1936) Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Flood, John and Sosa, Fabian P. (2008) ‘Lawyers, Law Firms and the Stabilisation of Transnational Business’, Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 28(3): 489–526. An e-copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1078820.Google Scholar
Galligan, Denis (2006) Law in Modern Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glanert, Simone (2008) ‘Speaking Language to Law: The Case of Europe’, Legal Studies 28: 161–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glenn, H. Patrick (2000) Legal Traditions of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. I. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Jacqueline (2000) ‘Comparing Legal Cultures: The Comparativist as Participant Observer’ in Nelken, David (ed.) Contrasting Criminal Justice: Getting from Here to There. Aldershot: Ashgate/Dartmouth, 139–56.Google Scholar
Hopt, Klaus J. (2006) ‘Comparative Company Law’ in Reimann, Mathias and Zimmermann, Reinhard (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1161–91.Google Scholar
Legrand, Pierre (1996) ‘European Legal Systems Are Not Converging’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 45: 52–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legrand, Pierre (1997) ‘Against a European Civil Code’, Modern Law Review 60: 44–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legrand, Pierre (2003) ‘The Same and the Different’ in Legrand, Pierre and Munday, Roderick (eds.) Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 240–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legrand, Pierre and Munday, Roderick (eds) (2003) Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menski, Werner (2000/2006) Comparative Law in a Global Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle (2003) ‘Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)’, PolaR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 26(1): 55–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (ed.) (2000) Contrasting Criminal Justice: Getting from Here to There. Aldershot: Ashgate/Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2004) ‘Using the Concept of Legal Culture’, Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 29: 1–28.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2007) ‘Culture, Legal’ in Clark, David S. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives. London: Sage, 369–74.Google Scholar
Norrie, Alan (2005) Law and the Beautiful Soul. London: GlassHouse Press.Google Scholar
Pound, Roscoe (1943) ‘Sociology of Law and Sociological Jurisprudence’, The University of Toronto Law Journal 5(1): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimann, Mathias and Zimmermann, Reinhard (2006) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Lawrence (2006) Law as Culture: An Invitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selznick, Phillip (1949) TVA and the Grass Roots. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Siems, Mathias M. (2007) ‘The End of Comparative Law’, The Journal of Comparative Law 2: 133–50.Google Scholar
Smits, Jan M. (ed.) (2006) Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sztompka, Piotr (1999) Trust: A Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (1998) ‘Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying Law Ends Up in New Divergences’, Modern Law Review 61(1): 11–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van dijk, Teun A. (1992) ‘Discourse and the Denial of Racism’, Discourse and Society, 3(1): 87–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van klink, Bart (2006) Facts and Norms: The Unfinished Debate between Eugen Ehrlich and Hans Kelsen. An e-copy is available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=980957.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond (1982) The Sociology of Culture. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, Robert (1987) Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar