Norman K. Denzin - Sociology of Law

Ancient Law
Henry Sumner Maine
with an introduction by Dante J. Scala

An Introduction to the Sociology of Law
Nicholas S. Timascheff
with an introduction by Trevino

Critique of the Legal Order
Richard Quirmey
with an introduction by Randall G. Shelder

Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law
Eugen Ehrlich
with a new introduction by Klaus A. Ziegert

Penal Philosophy
Gabriel Tarde
with a new introduction by Piers Beirne

Sociology of Law
Georges Gurvitch
with a new introduction by Alan Hunt

The General Theory of Law and Marxism
Evgeny Bronislavovich Pashukanis
with a new introduction by Dragan Milovanovic

The Social Reality of Crime
Richard Quinney
with a new introduction by A. Javier Trevifio

Georges Gurvitch

With a new introduction by Alan Hunt

Originally published in 1942 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

Published 2001 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 00-056798

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gurvitch, Georges, 1894-1965.
Sociology of law / Georges Gurvitch; with a new introduction
by Alan Hunt; with a preface by Roscoe Pound.
p. cm. (Law and society series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7658-0704-1 (pbk.: acid-free paper)
1. Sociological jurisprudence. I. Title. II. Series.
K370.G87 2000
340'.115dc21
00-056798

ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0704-5 (pbk)

Inquiries focused oil the place of law within societies wax and wane in their interest in locating themselves within some explicit and elaborated general theory. In some periods this is seen as a matter of pressing importance while in others such projects are regarded as unnecessary indulgences that impede the pursuit of empirical and policy concerns. In general, in the process by which subdisciplinary specializations undergo institutionalization there are two stages. In the first, some general theoretical framework is pursued as a means of defining and asserting a new specialization. In the second phase, attention becomes focused on expanding the funding base for the new specialization and the pursuit of research and institutional funding imposes the logic of "practicality" and "relevance" and leads to the rise of an empiricist preoccupation.

The history of the intellectual engagement of the social sciences with law has often been written in terms of a division between two linked components: a theoretically oriented sociology of law existing alongside empirically oriented socio-legal or law-and-society studies. This distinction, descriptively useful though it is, implies the coexistence of two alternative intellectual styles. A more accurate chronology involves periods of alternation between shifting dominant styles of inquiry within the field.

The institutionalization of social scientific engagement with the legal realm has followed an uneven path of development. In the early part of the twentieth century concern with law and legal phenomena was strongly evident within the mainstream development of sociology itself; this was particularly the case in the classic texts of Weber and Durkheim. This integration within mainstream sociological theory was also present at mid-century in the corpus of Talcott Parsons' systematization of social theory. In the interwar period there were important attempts to articulate a systematic sociology of law. The most significant of these was pioneered by Georges Gurvitch of which the present work was its most systematic expression. Another similar project was undertaken by the exiled Russian sociologist N.S. Timasheff (1936). These early attempts at systematic sociology of law gave rise to a partial institutionalization. In 1942 with Gurvitch now based like so many European scholars at the New School for Social Research, he launched the Journal of Legal and Political Sociology; the editorial board contained influential figures from both the legal and sociological fields such as Karl Llewellyn, Roscoe Pound, and Robert Maclver. This was not a propitious time for such a venture and by 1947 the journal had ceased to appear.

It was not until the 1960s that a renewed theoretical sociology of law emerged in the United States; this development was very strongly influenced by the dominant functionalist tradition, particularly the Parsonian version. Thereafter a protracted process of institutionalization occurred in which a suitable institutional location proved difficult to find. While law schools often had the resources they generally proved to offer an ill-equipped attic that reinforced the sense of isolation of social scientists who entered therein. In sociology departments rival claimants operating variously under the labels of "criminology" or "deviance" policed the entrance of sociological studies of law. These difficulties were gradually resolved and an expanding number of practitioners of the new subdiscipline came to make something of a virtue of the very mixed academic accommodation they found themselves occupying, whether it was in law schools, sociology departments or various self-standing institutes. By now they had created the appropriate apparatus of journals and professional associations.