The Sociology of Law in France: Trends and Paradigms
| Author | André Jean Arnaud,Pierre Noreau |
| Date | 01 June 1998 |
| Published date | 01 June 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00090 |
To suggest that French legal sociology is a field in which a dominant
theoretical tendency is identifiable is misleading; equally, attempts to provide
insight into the work achieved in French socio-legal studies which presuppose
that a complete inventory of the field must be undertaken are misguided. In
this article, an exposition of French legal sociology is attempted using
different means: following a brief history of the evolution of socio-legal
studies in France, the authors suggest different paradigms around which
French researchers appear to converge. Eight paradigms are identified,
covering the majority of French sociologists and jurists. The article concludes
with an analysis of some characteristics of socio-legal studies in general,
within the framework of French intellectual and academic life.
THE INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION OF A FIELD OF STUDY
The history of French legal sociology is not linear. This fact often surprises
the foreign researcher expecting to find the direct origins of a sociology of law
that is typically French (or one which contains the first traces of modern
criminology) in the works of Émile Durkheim or of Gabriel Tarde.1
French legal sociology has developed in a discontinuous fashion; and,
although the Durkheimien school largely dominated academic sociology
until the Second World War, it subsequently ceded its place to other
interpretive models. Durkheim and his successors are to be credited for
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
* Départment des sciences sociales et de la santé, Université du Québec en
Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 445 boulevard de l’Université, Rouyn-Noranda (Qc),
Canada J9X 5E4
** Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, Directeur du Réseau Européen Droit
et Société, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, France
The authors wish to acknowledge Ms. Martha-Marie Kleinhans for her efficient translation
of this text, originally written by us in French. With thanks also to Peter Fitzpatrick.
257
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 2, JUNE 1998
ISSN: 0263–323X, pp. 257–83
The Sociology of Law in France: Trends and Paradigms
PIERRE NOREAU* AND ANDRÉ-JEAN ARNAUD**
1For further information on these precursors of French criminology, see: É. Durkheim, De
la division du travail social, (1967, 2nd ed.); and G. Tarde, La criminologie comparée (1886).
See, generally, the bibliography and notes in the first part of: A.-J. Arnaud, Critique de la
raison juridique [:]Où va la sociologie du droit?, vol. 1 (1981).
having encouraged an institutional recognition of sociology; it is just this
institutionalization which later facilitated the legitimation of legal sociology
as a specific research domain. However, legal sociology had to find its way
without reference to any dominant paradigm whatsoever. Certain initiatives
did not have the consequences one would have expected. Thus, the work of
sociologist Georges Gurvitch on the distinction between state and social law,
published in the 1940s, passed practically unnoticed by French jurists (this
is partly due to the fact that such a distinction disturbed the very foundations
of the heretofore assumed monopoly of state normativity).2The French legal
sociologist owes much of his/her existence to jurists, like Henri Lévy-Bruhl,
who introduced instruction in the area of socio-legal studies. It was in order
to assure the continuity of such education that the Labouratoire de sociologie
criminelle et juridique was created at the Faculty of Law of Paris. Upon the
death of Henri Lévy-Bruhl, in 1964, Georges Levasseur assumed the admin-
istration of the centre. As Jean Carbonnier (the jurist who, for a long time,
presided over the destiny of the Labouratoire de sociologie juridique and who,
today, is considered to be the veritable founder of French legal sociology)
elegantly described the change of administration from Lévy-Bruhl to Levasseur,
the Labouratoire went through the transformation as if a cell dividing.3
Under Carbonnier’s influence, French legal sociology served mainly as a
support for legislative reforms. The Ministry of Justice, anxious to ensure
a better ‘fit’ between civil law and the state of social relations, became a
great benefactor of the work of the Labouratoire de sociologie juridique. The
work was concerned first with the reform of tutorship and the administration
of justice, then with the reform of matrimonial regimes, protection of minors,
the status of protected adults, filiation, and divorce.4An orientation toward
legal reform was to greatly mark legal sociological studies throughout the
1960s and 1970s. Carbonnier’s initiatives also went a long way toward
encouraging the entry of many sociologists upon the scene (for example,
Jacques Commaille, Yves Dezalay, and Alain Bancaud who were hired at
the time as sociologists at the Ministry of Justice). In time, these new scholars
were to pursue their research in very different directions. Alongside the
empirical research, Carbonnier’s work also promoted the recognition of legal
sociology as a legitimate domain of knowledge: the compilation of a text-
book5and the subsequent publication of numerous essays on the social
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© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
2On the work of Georges Gurvitch, see: J.-G. Belley, ‘Georges Gurvitch et les professionnels
de la prensée juridique’, in (1986) 4 Droit et Société 353–71. Jean Carbonnier provides an
explanation of this isolation of Gurvitch by jurists in an interview in: S. Andrini and A.-
J. Arnaud, Jean Carbonnier, Renato Treves et la sociologie du droit: archéologie d’une
discipline (1995) at 40.
3On the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Labouratoire de sociologie juridique,
see the interview with Jean Carbonnier in Andrini and Arnaud, id., pp. 38–9.
4 id., p. 34.
5Jean Carbonnier first published his Sociologie Juridique with Armand Colin in 1972. The
work then appeared in the Thémis des Presses collection of the Université de France. See
A.-J. Arnaud, ‘Jean Carbonnier, Sociologie du droit, nouvelle version [PUF, ‘Quadrige’]
1994’ (1994) 27 Droit et Société 493–8.
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