Law Society and Community

This collection of socio-legal studies, written by leading theorists and researchers from around the world, offers original, perceptive and critical contributions to ideas and theories that have been expounded by Roger Cotterrell over a long and distinguished career. Engaging with many classic issues and theories of the sociology of law, the contributions are likely to become classics themselves as they tackle some of the most significant challenges that modern law faces. They do not shy away from what one of the contributors describes as the complexity and multiplicity of our contemporary legal world. The book is organized in three parts: socio-legal themes; methodological and jurisprudential themes; globalization, cultural and comparative law themes. Starting with a chapter that re-engages with the need to interpret legal ideas sociologically, and ending with one that explores the global significance of modern fascination with the idea of the rule of law, this selection offers important additions to the oeuvre of Roger Cotterrell (a list of whose academic writings is included in the book). Introduction; I: Socio-Legal Themes; 1: Why Must Legal Ideas Be Interpreted Sociologically? Roger Cotterrell and the Vocation of Sociology of Law; 2: Sociology, History and the ‘Internal' Study of Law; 3: Images of Borders and the Politics and Legality of Identity; 4: Brave New World? The Challenges of Transnational Law and Legal Pluralism to Contemporary Legal Theory; 5: Polity as Constitutional Law's Community; 6: The Politics of The Politics of Jurisprudence; II: Methodological and Jurisprudential Themes; 7: Towards a Fruitful Cooperation between Legal Philosophy, Legal Sociology and Doctrinal Research; 8: Discovering the Econo-Socio-Legal Through a Communal Lens; 9: Culture, Community, Comparison; 10: Law, Community and the 2011 London Riots; 11: ‘No Justice, No Peace!' Conceptualizing Legal Alienation in the Aftermath of the Trayvon Martin Case; 12: Three Concepts of Law and the Lost Art of Legislation; 13: The Sociology of The Politics of Jurisprudence; III: Globalization, Cultural and Comparative Law Themes; 14: The Sociology of International Law; 15: From Legal Pluralism to Global Legal Pluralism; 16: Legal Culture and Legal Transplants; 17: Keeping Civility in its Place; 18: Why Are Americans Originalist?; 19: The Rule of Law After the Short Twentieth Century