| ID: |
TARP-170 |
| Title: |
DISCLOSING/INVOOKING LEGAL CULTURE: An Introduction |
| Source: |
Social & Legal Studies Vol. 4 (1995), 435 – 452 |
| Parties: |
|
| Dispute Resolution Organ: |
|
| Year: |
1995 |
| Pages: |
18 |
| Author(s): |
David Nelken |
| Keywords: |
globalization, legal institutions, legal norms, rule of law, trade, legal culture |
| Abstract: |
The author describes the variety of approaches to defining legal culture. There are different ways of conceptualizing legal culture. E.g. L. Friedman distinguishes between the ideas and practices of those legal and political actors who reproduce what is described as “internal legal culture”, such as types of legal reasoning, as contrasted to “external legal culture”, which refers to the type and level of expectations that ordinary or influential people bring to the law. This approach sometimes goes further and distinguishes between supply and demand for law. There are also boundary problems. Where shall the unit of legal culture be located, in the nation-state, the culture of local courts or the roles and relationships of individuals? Scholars have tried to integrate the various aspects of legal culture by arguing that legal culture should be treated as a “multi-layered” concept which includes legal norms, salient features of legal institutions and their infrastructure, social behaviour in creating, using and not using law, as well as legal consciousness in the legal professions and amongst the public. Also the interconnection between the different levels in which law is materialized, such as the relationship between “law in books” and “living law” reflects a certain type of legal culture. Another question is, whether law can be examined as a separate category from politics. |
| Secured: |
False |
| Download Article: |
435.full.pdf |
Keywords: globalization, legal culture, legal institutions, legal norms, rule of law, trade
