The sociology of law can be described as an interdisciplinary approach or sub-field of legal studies concerned with the study of legal issues, practices and people. Sometime referred to as the descriptive law, this approach attempts to illuminate the aspects of the legal subject by means of a sociological perspective. As opposed to a legal philosophy with an exclusively legal approach, sociology of law can be seen as a descriptive approach, drawing upon the aspects of the legal domain as a means of understanding the practice of the law. It also draws on aspects of the social sciences as well as of history and other disciplines. Some view sociology of law as being a separate discipline from sociology of law, but many others believe that it is closely connected to all disciplines of the law.
In order for sociology to be called a subfield of legal scholarship, it must fall within the purview of criminology, philosophy of law, social science, psychology and other social science disciplines. However, one must also keep in mind that there is overlap among these various disciplines. For example, while some scholars within philosophy of law argue that legal systems tend to suppress societal aspects of the individual and/or the group, others are of the opinion that the absence of such societal aspects in legal systems is the result of their being unable to find a way to capture these aspects. This view is strongly influenced by developments in the early modern period when legal systems struggled with the problem of legitimacy. Legal scholarship in this era was based on theories of rectification and modernization. Continue reading
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