Law in action or living law? Back to the beginning in sociology of law

Abstract

Sociology of law often seems to be marked by a form of intellectual apartheid. Whilst social theorists refine their conceptual frameworks, those with more practical concerns robustly set out to investigate the ‘law in action’. Mixing of the two approaches is thought likely to impede their necessary separate development. One recent survey of the field concluded that:‘The trend is likely to be a continuing divergence between its theoretical and practical branches: the theoretical consisting mainly of re-analyses of old sociological approaches to law, and the practical continuing with its problem-solving approach without confronting the theoretical problems implicit in what it accepts as problems and solutions’.