Michael Salter, A Dialectic Despite Itself? Overcoming the Phenomenology of Legal Culture
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399500400408 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
ABSTRACTS
DAVID
NELKEN,
Disclosing/Invoking
Legal
Culture:
An
Introduction
The
introduction
to
this
special
issue
provides
a
context
tor
the
other
more
substantive
contributions
by
discussing
the
concept
of
legal
culture
and
the
part
it
might
play
in
reviving
the
comparative
sociology
of
law.
It
first
surveys
some
of
the
different
uses
of
the
term
in
the
existing
literature,
and
then
examines
a
variety
of
problems
of
theory
and
method
relevant
to
attempts
to
portray
legal
cultures
in
a
period
of
increasing
globalization.
The
merits
of
interpretative
approaches,
such
as
the
ones
in
this
special
issue,
are
stressed
but
some
of
the
drawbacks
are
also
spelled
out.
It
concludes
by
underlining
the
antimonies
which
confront
efforts
not
only
to
grasp
other
people’s
legal
cultures
but
also
our
own.
MICHAEL
SALTER,
A
Dialectic
Despite
Itself?
Overcoming
the
Phenomenology
of
Legal
Culture
This
article
sets
out
the
characteristics
of
a
phenomenological
approach
to
legal
culture,
and
contrasts
these
point
by
point
with
the
more
positivistic
methods
that
have
traditionally
been
adopted
by
much
socio-legal
research.
The
strengths
and
limits
of
the
phenomenological
approach
to
legal
culture
are
then
explored
through
a
process
of
immanent
critique
drawn
from
an
explicitly
dialectical
account
of
law.
It
is
shown
that
the
phenomenological
inversion
of
terms
that
takes
place
within
a
series
of
traditional
dichotomies,
e.g.
from
objectivism
to
subjectivism,
utterly
fails,
in
practice,
to
resolve
the
basic
problems
caused
by
these
underlying
dualisms
themselves.
By
contrast,
the
critique
carried
out
by
means
of
a
dialectical
approach
to
legal
experience
reveals
the
presence
of
a
series
of
contradictions
between
what
is
promised
by
a
phenomenological
approach,
and
what
this
approach
can
actually
fulfil
given
the
consequences
for
empirical
research
of
some
of
its
more
dubious
methodological
prescriptions.
SERGIO
LÓPEZ-AYLLÓN,
Notes
on
Mexican
Legal
Culture
Based
on
a
broad
concept
of
legal
culture,
the
article
outlines
in
the
first
part
certain
elements
of
the
substratum
of
the
Mexican
legal
culture,
particularly
the
fact
that
in
Mexico
law
has
played
more
of
an
instituting
rather
than
a
regulatory
role.
The
second
part
explains
how
these
elements
determine
the
social
meaning
of
the
law
and
the
way
it
relates
to
the
Mexican
State.
Finally,
the
article
shows
how,
as
a
result
of
the
change
of
the
economic
model
of
development,
the
modifications
in
the
structure
and
distribution
of
the
population,
the
process
of
globalization
and
the
entry
into
force
of
the
NAFTA,
the
Mexican
legal
culture
is
undergoing
a
substantial
transformation.
ANTOINE
GARAPON,
French
Legal
Culture
and
the
Shock
of
’Globalization’
These
last
years,
French
law
has
been
subjected
to
challenges
of
considerable
importance.
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