Self-Sufficiency of Law: A Critical-Institutional Theory of Social Order (Introduction)

Abstract:     
This Introduction introduces readers to Self-sufficiency of Law: A Critical-institutional Theory of Social Order, which investigates the role of law, legal categories, and legal experts in the organisational dynamics of social collectivities. It demonstrates that law is a stable practice among publicly recognised experts who are called upon to select the ‘normative facts’ of a population, that is, the set of standards that are proclaimed as binding on the entire collectivity. At the very same time it argues that the legal field also serves as a special trans-sectional and insulated venue in which lay people can renegotiate social reality by means of law’s special stock of knowledge and categories. To do this, the book proposes an integration of the recent research outcomes achieved in three different areas of study, namely, legal positivism, legal institutionalism, and legal pluralism. It examines, among others, the notions of rule, coercion, social practice and institution elaborated on by significant theorists in these fields, highlighting both the merits and flaws and ultimately advancing a notion of law that is able to account for the nature of the legal practice as a basic pillar of social order. This text also covers key guidelines for empirical research and political activities in Western and non-Western countries.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 30

Keywords: Legal Institutionalism, Legal Pluralism, Legal Positivism, Philosophy of Law, Social Knowledge, Social Order

Accepted Paper Series