THE METHOD AND CULTURE OF COMPARATIVE LAW: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF MARK VAN HOECKE. Eds Maurice Adams and Dirk Heirbaut Oxford/Portland Oregon: Hart Publishers, 2014. xvii + 328 pp. ISBN 9781849466233. £60.
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2015.0289 |
| Pages | 296-297 |
| Published date | 01 May 2015 |
| Author | Esin Örücü |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
This collection of twenty-one essays offers perceptive and critical contributions, celebrating ideas and theories that have been expounded by Mark Van Hoecke and “preoccupied his thinking” over a long and distinguished career. In this beautifully produced volume, leading theorists and researchers look at significant aspects of their fields. The editors tell us that the volume has a chosen theme: the method and culture of comparative law. In order to create a space for all the contributions however, both concepts must be very broadly defined by the reader. The word “culture” for instance, has at least two very broad meanings as it appears in this volume: one looks at legal cultures as “the natural objects of comparison”, with elements ranging from “facts about legal institutions” (John Bell, Roger Brownsword), to “various forms of behaviour” (Souichiron Kozuka and Luke Nottage) or “more nebulous aspects of ideas, values, aspirations and mentalities” (Sean Donlan, Jorn Oyrehagen Sunde). The other meaning is related to “what researching this implies in terms of the research approach, that is the method and methodology, when dealing with legal culture” (here there are specific essays by Patrick Glenn, Jaap Hage, Jaakko Husa, Toon Moonen and Catherine Valcke and Mathew Grellette). Yet, culture does have other connotations. Can we say that the sole overall aim in this volume is to treat culture as the object and the method as the approach of comparative law? Do all the contributions support this view?
The editors tell us that they have grouped the essays under three virtual headings: method and methodology, globalisation, and context and interdisciplinarity. Although they themselves analyse the contributions under these groupings, they have chosen not to make this categorisation explicitly “so that this would not distract the reader from other interesting aspects of the chapters that do not at first sight fall into the category that seems most relevant”. Unless one reads chapter one in detail, and then looks at the virtually grouped chapters in the order suggested there, the chapters do not fall into place as designed by the editors. I would have preferred explicit visibility in the table of contents, and the chapters to be placed in the chosen groups. I am sure the reader would not have missed the other “valuable and interesting aspects” of the contributions. In the approach chosen, the volume's inner logic is not evident, and it appears more like a collection...
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