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The Ideology of Law: Advances and Problems in Recent Applications of the Concept of Ideology to the Analysis of Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Alan Hunt
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Abstract

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In this paper I note the growth of analyses of law that focus upon its ideological character and content, and I identify problems and difficulties manifest in the ideological analysis in recent critical and Marxist texts. The paper argues that work focusing upon the ideological character of law realizes significant advances over that produced by the more orthodox approaches within the sociology of law and jurisprudence employing normative analysis. It is possible to make ideological analysis more rigorous. The paper outlines the elements of a theory of and methodology for the ideological analysis of law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , 1985 , pp. 11 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

This paper was originally delivered as the George Lurcy lecture at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, in September 1983. I would like to thank Piers Beirne, Maureen Cain, Jeremy Cooper, Steve Redhead, David Sugarman, and Ronnie Warrington for valuable comment and criticism.

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