The sociological concept of law

Abstract

What should sociology of law take as its central subject - matter? What should it treat as ‘law’? The answers are not self-evident but must be the basis of any attempt to develop a sociological theory of law. A wide variety of approaches is advocated in the literature. In studying systematically organized regulatory practices, however, a concept of law as institutionalized doctrine seems particularly useful. This does not restrict law to state law or “lawyers’ law”, but it treats the regulation produced and applied by agencies of the centralized state as the dominant form of contemporary law. Arguments around the concept of law serve as an essential starting point for trying to reinterpret legal theory and the field of law in sociological terms.