Jurisprudence and Socio-Legal Studies

Roger Cotterrell is Anniversary Professor of Legal Theory at Queen Mary University of London. Educated as both a lawyer and a sociologist, he has written widely on jurisprudence, sociology of law, and comparative law, and has devoted much of his career to building conversations between the contrasting traditions of jurisprudence and sociology of law. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. His book Sociological Jurisprudence, published by Routledge in 2018, won the international Dennis Mahoney Prize for Legal Theory in 2022.

‘This is a marvelous collection: the essays show Roger Cotterrell at his best: incisive but also open-minded, offering valuable lessons to both established scholars and beginning law students.’Professor Brian Bix,Frederick W. Thomas Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Minnesota, USA`Jurisprudence and Socio-Legal Studies: Intersecting Fields is a new masterpiece. …In summary, Cotterrell’s new book not only shows the real challenge to building bridges between jurisprudence and socio-legal studies but also the pathway to collaboration between the two fields. It provides a fundamental rethinking of the past, the present, and the future of the intersection of jurisprudence and socio-legal studies and will leave an important legacy. It is a book that must be read by scholars and students who are interested in jurisprudence, socio-legal studies, sociology of law, and comparative law.'Ting Xu, University of Essex, UKSocial & Legal Studies; DOI: 10.1177/09646639241296107 journals.sagepub.com/home/sls'Cotterrell structures his account in three parts: ‘A Terrain of Socio-Legal Inquiry’, ‘Juristic Radicals as Socio-Legal Pioneers’, and ‘Mapping Intersecting Fields’. It is an unapologetically wide-ranging account, weaving together a panoply of topics and themes, some familiar and others a welcome surprise. Nevertheless, the chapters are characteristically concise and clear – a feature that ensures that Cotterrell’s intricate theses remain accessible to a broad audience of advanced students and academics from numerous disciplines, including sociology of law, socio-legal studies, jurisprudence, and sociology.'James Campbell, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford; book review in Journal of Law and Society https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12503

• Preface xiiiIntroduction: Mapping Inquiries about Law 1About Jurisprudence 1About Socio-Legal Studies 3About Sociology of Law 5Profiles in Pre-Hart Jurisprudence 8How to Build Bridges 10PART IA Terrain of Socio-Legal Inquiry 111 The Development of Sociology of Law 13Living Law: A Problem for State Law? 15Escaping the Limits of Living Law 18Legal Pluralism and the State 22Rethinking ‘Law’ and ‘Society’ 242 The Identity and Function of Sociology of Law 26A Stepchild among the Disciplines 26Sociology of Law as a Field of Practice 29The Problem of the Concept of Law 33Instability and Promise 363 The Place of Values in Socio-Legal Studies 39Ultimate Values in Regulatory Practice 41How Instrumentalism Marginalises Values 44Culture and Community 47Tendencies towards Cultural Closure 49Values in Socio-Legal Theory 524 Legal Culture and Cultural Diversity 56Components of Culture 57A Politics of Legal Culture 59Legal Culture in the Conference Room 61Cultural Self-Sufficiency 63Law and Culture across State Boundaries 65Culture as an Umbrella Concept 665 Socio-Legal Studies and the Law School 68A View from the Law School 68Legal Scholars and Social Theory 73PART IIJuristic Radicals as Socio-Legal Pioneers 776 Jurisprudence in Context 79Theory and Variation in Socio-Legal Inquiry 79A Bricolage Method 81Scope and Uses of Jurisprudential Theory 84Four Jurists and Their Times 877 The Jurist as Humanist Polymath (Petrażycki) 94Petrażycki in the World of Jurists 95Petrażycki’s Influence on Legal Sociology 98Petrażycki and Current Socio-Legal Inquiry 101Petrażycki’s Hidden Legacy 1118 The Jurist as Legal Sociologist (Ehrlich) 112The Relativity of Centres and Peripheries 113Ehrlich in Empire and Culture 116Responses to Radicalism 119The State and Social Associations 122Ehrlich’s Concept of Law 124An Assessment 1289 Radical Legal Pluralism in the Shadow of Fascism (Romano) 130An Enigmatic Classic 131Legal Pluralism for Lawyers 132Legal Pluralism for Social Scientists 133Romano’s Juristic Radicalism 135An Institutional Theory 136The Rise of Fascism and the Context of The Legal Order 139Legal Pluralism in Contemporary Politics 141An Uncertain Role for the State 144The Limits of a Lawyer’s Focus 14610 A Functional Jurisprudence for the Welfare State (Lundstedt) 147A Method of Reading Juristic Theories 147The View from Afar: Lundstedt Abroad 149Lundstedt in Swedish Context 154A Wider Context: The Jurist’s Role 159PART IIIMapping Intersecting Fields 16511 Parallel Histories: Jurisprudence and Social Science 167Law in the Evolution of Sociology 168Sociology in the Perspective of Jurists 171Pathways to Collaboration 176The Memory of Pioneers 18212 Contemporary Interactions: Legal Theory and Social Theory 183Theme 1: Legal Individualism 184Theme 2: Law’s Autonomy and Identity 187Theme 3: Law and Power 189Theme 4: Law as an Integrative Mechanism 192Theme 5: Law in and beyond the State 195Conclusion 19713 Linked Futures: Jurisprudence and Socio-Legal Studies 199The Identity of Socio-Legal Studies 200The Identity of Jurisprudence 203Three Themes for the Present and Future 208References 214Index 232