European and American scholars of law and society apparently have problems in communicating with each other. To invoke Lewis Carroll's authority on a piece of legal theory indicates how serious the problems are. After all, traced to its true origins, “Jabberwocky,” the famous “Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” (Carroll, 1855; 1871: 191), means “weeks of woe” in its original German version (Scott alias Chatterton, 1872). And inextricably involved in the interpretation of the poetry is a certain Hermann von Schwindel . . .

Ernst Benda. Sozialrechtliche Eigentumspositionen im Arbeitskampf: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um die Änderung des § 116 Arbeitsförderungsgesetz (The guarantee of private property and its extension on claims based on social security law in situations of industrial action: A contribution to the discussion on the amendment of section 116 of the Employment Promotion Act). (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1986).

Manfred Bobke and Herbert Grimberg. Der gewerkschaftliche Warnstreik im Arbeitskampfrecht: “Neue Beweglichkeit” gegen rechtliche Begrenzungen der gewerkschaftlichen Handlungsfreiheit (The warning strike organized by trade unions as reflected in the law on industrial conflict: “New mobility” against legal limitations of trade unions' freedom). (Cologne: Bund, 1983).

Volker Jahnke. Tarifautonomie und Mitbestimmung (Freedom of collective bargaining and codetermination). (Munich: Beck, 1984).

Volkhart Kriebel. Zentralisation und Dezentralisation im Tarifsystem: Möglichkeit und rechtliche Zulässigkeit einer dezentralen Tarifpolitik (Centralization and decentralization in the system of collective bargaining: Factual and legal possibility of a decentralized collective bargaining policy). (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1984).

Fritz Ossenbühl and Reinhard Richardi. Neutralität im Arbeitskampf (Neutrality in industrial conflict). (Cologne: Heymanns, 1987).

Eduard Picker. Der Warnstreik und die Funktion des Arbeitskampfes in der Privatrechtsordnung (The warning strike and the function of industrial action in the system of civil law). (Cologne: Heymanns, 1983).

Ulrich Runggaldier. Kollektivvertragliche Mitbestimmung bei Arbeitsorganisation und Rationalisierung (Codetermination of work organization and rationalization by collective agreements). (Frankfurt: Metzner, 1983).

The economic crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s has led to a continuous questioning of established patterns of labor law in the Federal Republic of Germany. Until the mid-1970s full employment was one of the basic characteristics of the German labor market. Since then, an unemployment rate of approximately 10 percent has become part of the picture. In spite of the fact that the economy has recovered to a great degree, unemployment persists. Evidently, economic growth by itself does not imply job creation, and rationalization has become the key word of management policy. Since economic growth is more easily reached by new technologies than by the use of more manpower, job security is endangered irrespective of economic prosperity. In order to remain competitive in the world market, German companies have no choice but to reduce costs and to increase productivity.

Niklas Luhmann is a troublemaker: he writes a great deal, and on very many subjects, and he is still expanding his theory. As a jurist, he started with studies on law and administration, but soon he reached the level of general sociology and published a wealth of books and articles on power, love, religion, morality, education, art, the economy, and the like. With his supertheory he is now on his way to inheriting the philosophical tradition of the Occident (cf. Habermas, 1985: 426–45). Luhmann has developed his own terminology, which sounds familiar, but in which the meaning of customary expressions such as “legitimacy,” “ideology,” “institution,” and “meaning” is intentionally distorted. He also uses new concepts like “autopoiesis” and has created models for a fashionable semantic: “reduction of complexity,” “legitimation by procedure”—now clichés for a social scientist. His compact-hermetic supertheory, his nicely constructed conceptual framework does not derive from a single source or principle only; rather, Luhmann has combined various theories and approaches in his super-mega-world view. Not only does he use cybernetics, formal systems theory (input-output models), sociological systems theory à la Parsons, Husserl's phenomenological epistemology, Gehlen's anthropology, and symbolic interactionism, but he has also recently borrowed from thermodynamics, biology, neurophysiology, theory of cells, and computer theory (cf. Luhmann, 1984: 27). Luhmann claims to have established a general systems theory, for which law and sociology of law are only a single field of application.

This review of work and trends in the sociology of law makes no claims to being exhaustive or comprehensive. If it succeeds in pinpointing and highlighting major work, important problems, and gaps in the field, in showing trends that have developed, and in suggesting ideas for future direction, we shall have accomplished our objectives.

This review essay integrates applicable elements of scholarly perspectives that in quite different ways deal with political and economic power, legal imperialism, and dependency. Representative examples of scholarly treatments of these subjects were chosen from analyses of families of law, critical legal studies, comparative legal systems, world system and dependency theory, and legal history. Most are modern or contemporary works, but a few were chosen from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century publications to trace changing modes and emphases upon the central theme of law and power.

The history of law and society studies in Korea is rather short. Although there were some precursors like Chong Yag-yong (1762–1836), who conducted pioneering legal studies on the basis of empirical methodology, the sociological perspective he pioneered unfortunately failed to flourish. As the momentum of spontaneous modernization, including the law in the late Yi dynasty (1392–1910), was frustrated by Japanese colonial rule, it was only after the liberation of the nation in 1945 that jurisprudence emerged as a subject of academic interest.

Sociology of law in the Chinese mainland is currently enjoying a revival. Since 1979 the legalization of Chinese society has been surging forward; legal theories, however, have made slow progress. Some approaches, such as “perplexity of jurisprudence” or “the crisis of Communist legal theory,” have revealed restlessness and reflection in law circles. Therefore, when a few young research workers raised the clarion call “Make a breach in doctrinairism through sociology of law,” a chord was struck in the hearts of many people. On September 12, 1987, the first national symposium for sociology of law was held under the auspices of the Law Department of Peking University and the Politics and Law Research Group in the Institute of Reform of the Economic System in China. Over three days, the fifty-three persons present from thirty organizations throughout the country submitted twenty-five papers to the symposium, decided on the Plan for Exchange and Research in Legal Sociology (abbreviated in English as PERLS), and discussed the tasks ahead. As of January 30, 1988, the membership of PERLS had reached 186 (including forty-one policy research workers of state organs and ten lawyers), and the number of research projects concerning sociology of law totaled six, scattered all over Beijing Municipality, Shanghai Municipality, and Jilin and Jiangxi provinces. The Institute of Comparative Law and Sociology of Law, Peking University, and the Shanghai Institute of Sociology of Law were established recently. In addition, there are also some new research organizations concerned, such as the Commission of Law Studies in the Chinese Association of Behavior Science, the Institute of Sociology and the Research Group of Legal Systems Science in China University of Political Science and Law, and the Institute of Legal Psychology in Nankai University. The reestablishment of sociology of law in China is directed and supported by Professor Zhao Zhen-jiang, chair of the law department of Peking University, and Professor Shen Zong-ling, head of the Institute of Comparative Law and Sociology of Law in the same university.