Sociology of Law in Germany: Reflection and Practice
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12005 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | Alfons Bora |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 43, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2016
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 619±46
Sociology of Law in Germany: Reflection and Practice
Alfons Bora*
This article is the fourth in an occasional series dealing with the
development, current status, and future of socio-legal studies in
selected countries. It follows articles by Kim Economides (Aotearoa/
New Zealand), Harry Arthurs and Annie Bunting (Canada), and
Renaud Colson and Stewart Field (France).
INTRODUCTION
If one looks to the manifold and vibrant organization of conferences and
workshops, the sociology of law is a flourishing branch of science in the
German-speaking world.
1
Much less obvious is the theoretical profile of the
field. Rather disappointing, beyond that, is its institutional structure. There
has been almost a complete disappearance of research institutes and
university professorships in the sociology of law over the past few decades.
These developments, which will be described more in detail in the
following sections, have their causes in the origins of post-war sociology of
law in Germany. I assume that a sociological and historical reconstruction of
these origins will allow for the evolution of new possibilities for advancing
theory in the sociology of law. In contrast to existing interpretations, which
are usually based on institutions or theoretical interests, an appropriate
understanding of the historical conditions calls for a closer look at the
internal status of socio-legal theory since its beginnings in the late nineteenth
century.
619
*Universita
Èt Bielefeld, Fakulta
Ètfu
È
r Soziologie, Postfach 100131, D-33501
Bielefeld, Germany
alfons.bora@uni-bielefeld.de
1 Law and Society Association international meeting in Berlin 2007, co-sponsored by
the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociological
Association and organized by the German socio-legal community; a series of con-
ferences on German-speaking sociology of law in Lucerne (2008), Bremen (2010),
Vienna (2011), and Berlin (2015), accompanied by an impressive number of smaller
workshops organized by the sociology of law section, Deutsche Gesellschaft fu
Èr
Soziologie, the German Sociological Association.
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School
A discursive history of legal sociology in German-speaking countries
after 1945 depicts a process of incongruent positioning. This is based on
recent developments in the sociology of science. This article's central thesis
claims that theory construction in the sociology of law takes place in scien-
tific discourses of autonomy and practice. These discourses are characterized
by contested descriptions of interdisciplinary relations. On the level of
theoretical self-description ± in other words, in reflective theory ± such
contested descriptions and positions cannot be aligned without difficulty.
This article is structured as follows: section I gives an overview of the
process of institutionalization, which has stretched over more than one cen-
tury and resulted in a by and large weak position in contemporary academia.
Against this background, section II outlines the reflective theories that have
shaped the field of legal sociology in Germany; their salient characteristic is
a fundamental asymmetry in the perception of interdisciplinarity. This
asymmetry marks a blind spot in the configuration of various socio-legal
discourses, a common feature of all reflective theories.
The section goes on to identify a weak general sociological theory as the
core problem lying behind the insufficient self-descriptions in reflective
theories; this weak point, the argument claims, stems from a lack of attention
to the environment of science. In other words, it signifies a lack of attention
to practice, which is in a way a central feature of sophisticated sociological
theory in legal sociology. Lastly, section III asks about the chances of a
sustained recovery of the sociology of law in this context.
I. STRONG PROGRAMME, WEAK IMPLEMENTATION ±
THE FAILED INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE SOCIOLOGY
OF LAW IN GERMANY
The development of legal sociology was coined by a dynamic interplay
between individual actors, institutional structures, and global historical
trends. It is therefore not easy to identify distinct steps or phases in this
development process, although there have been attempts to do so.
2
This
section will start with a brief reminder of the development before 1945
before proceeding with an overview of the institutional history of the field. It
then shows how scholarly associations left an imprint on the appearance of
the interdisciplinary field. This field was also, at least for a certain period of
time, influenced by a remarkable share of policy advice and administrative
or governmental research programs. I will also show how the German
Journal of Law and Society (Zeitschrift fu
Èr Rechtssoziologie) has played a
very important role since the 1980s, a time when the field was already in
620
2 D. Lucke, `Verwendung soziologischen Wissens in juristischen ZusammenhaÈngen'
(1988) 9 Zeitschrift fu
Èr Rechtssoziologie 121.
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School
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