Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T18:52:59.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thinking About Legal Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2014

David NELKEN
David NELKEN*
Affiliation:
Dickson Poon Law School, King’s College, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper addresses the controversial concept of legal culture. It first considers the different meanings of the term and the variety of debates in which it figures. It then goes on to consider difficulties in deciding the units to which the term “legal culture” is applied, and the problems in using the term in explanations. It concludes by examining the way assumptions about what gives legal culture its coherence have implications for explaining how and when it changes. In each section of the argument an attempt is also made to show the relevance of these questions for the Asian Journal of Law and Society as seen in the papers published in its first issue.

Keywords

legal culturecomparative lawsociology of lawcoherencesocial change
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 2014 , pp. 255 - 274
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Professor of Comparative and Transnational Law in Context, and Head of Research, Dickson Poon Law School, King’s College, London.

References

REFERENCES

Aoki, Masahiko (2014) “Formal Rules in Institutional Transitions: An Examination Based on the Meiji Restoration and the Xinhai Revolution.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 31–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barron, Gordon (2005) “The World Bank and Rule of Law Reforms.” LSE Working Papers 1470–2320.Google Scholar
Bell, John (2001) French Legal Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blankenburg, Erhard (1997) “Civil Litigation Rates as Indicators for Legal Culture,” in D. Nelken, ed., Comparing Legal Cultures, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 41–68.Google Scholar
Blankenburg, Erhard, & Bruinsma, Freek (1991) Dutch Legal Culture, Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar
Bruinsma, Freek, & Blankenburg, Erhard (2000) Dutch Law in Action, Nijmegen: Ars Aequi Libri.Google Scholar
Chan, Raymond Siu Yeung, Ho, Daniel& Young, Angus (2014) “Rethinking the Relevance or Irrelevance of Directors’ Duties in China: The Intersection Between Culture and Laws.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 183–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chua, Lynette J. (2014) “Rights Mobilization and the Campaign to Decriminalize Homosexuality in Singapore.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 205–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotterrell, Roger (1997) “The Concept of Legal Culture,” in D. Nelken, ed., Comparing Legal Cultures, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 13–31.Google Scholar
Dalla Pellegrina, Lucia, Escresa, Laarni& Garoupa, Nuno (2014) “Measuring Judicial Ideal Points in New Democracies: The Case of the Philippines.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 125–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewar, John (1998) “The Normal Chaos of Family Law.” 61 Modern Law Review 467–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engel, David (2012) “The Uses of Legal Culture in Contemporary Socio-Legal Studies: A Response to Sally Engle Merry,” in D. Nelken, ed., Using Legal Culture, London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 77–85.Google Scholar
Engel, David, & Engel, Jaruwan S. (2010) Tort, Custom, and Karma: Globalization and Legal Consciousness in Thailand, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Eric (2006a). “The Culture of Legal Change: A Case Study of Tobacco Control in Twenty-first Century Japan.” 27 Michigan Journal of International Law 743–821.Google Scholar
Feldman, Eric (2006b) “The Tuna Court: Law and Norms in the World’s Premier Fish Market.” 94 California Law Review 313–369.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. (1997) “The Concept of Legal Culture: A Reply,” in D. Nelken, ed., Comparing Legal Cultures, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 33–40.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. (2006) “The Place of Legal Culture in the Sociology of Law,” in M. Freeman, ed., Law and Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. (2014) “Ghosts, Machines, and Asian Law: Some Comments.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, John (2008) “Developing a Decentred Analysis of Legal Transfers,” in P. Nicholson & S. Biddulph, eds., Examining Practice, Interrogating Theory: Comparative Studies in Asia, Amsterdam: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 25–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom, & Hoetker, Glenn (2004) “The Unreluctant Litigant: An Empirical Analysis of Japan’s Turn to Litigation.” University of Illinois Law & Economics Research Paper No. LE04–009.Google Scholar
Glenn, Patrick H. (2004) “Legal Cultures and Legal Traditions,” in M. Van Hoeck, ed., Epistemology and Methodology of Comparative Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 7–20.Google Scholar
Haley, John O. (1978) “The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant.” 4 Journal of Japanese Studies 359–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haltom, William, & McCaan, Michael (2004) Distorting the Law, Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofstede, Geert (1980/2001) Culture’s Consequences, New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Jacob, Robert (2014) “The Judge and the Sacred: Notes for a Comparative History of Western and Chinese Judicial Cultures.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ji, Weidong (2014) “Foreword.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, Robert (2001) Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawashima, Takeyoshi (1963) “Dispute Resolution in Contemporary Japan,” in Arthur T. von Mehren, ed., Law in Japan: The Legal Order in a Changing Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 41–72.Google Scholar
Kenny, Sally J. (1996) “Review of Blankenburg and Bruinsma’s Dutch Legal Culture.” 6 Law and Politics Book Review 122–123.Google Scholar
Krygier, Martin (1996–97) “Is There Constitutionalism after Communism? Institutional Optimism, Cultural Pessimism, and the Rule of Law.” 26 International Journal of the Sociology of Law 17–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Sida, Liang, Lily& Halliday, Terence C. (2014) “The Trial of Li Zhuang: Chinese Lawyers’ Collective Action against Populism.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 79–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally (2012) “What is Legal Culture? An Anthropological Perspective,” in D. Nelken, ed., Using Legal Culture, London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 52–76.Google Scholar
Miyazawa, Setsuo (1995) “For the Liberal Transformation of Japanese Legal Culture: A Review of the Recent Scholarship and Practice.” 29 Kobe University Law Review 45–64.Google Scholar
Nakamura, Mayumi (2014) “Legal Reform, Law Firms, and Lawyer Stratification in Japan.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 99–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (1986) “Beyond the Study of ‘Law and Society’? Henry’s Private Justice and O’Hagan’s the End of Law?” 11 Law & Social Inquiry 323–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (1997a) “Puzzling out Legal Culture: A Comment on Blankenburg,” in D. Nelken, ed., Comparing Legal Cultures, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 58–88.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (1997b) “The Globalization of Crime and Criminal Justice: Prospects and Problems,” in M. Freeman, ed., Law and Opinion at the End of the 20th Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 251–279.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2003) “Beyond Compare? Criticising the American Way of Law.” 28 Law and Social Inquiry 181–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (2004) “Using the Concept of Legal Culture.” 29 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 1–28.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2006) “Rethinking Legal Culture,” in M. Freeman, ed., Law and Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 200–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (2009) Beyond the Study of “Law in Context,” Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2012a) “Using Legal Culture: Purposes and Problems,” in D. Nelken, ed., Using Legal Culture, London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 1–51.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2012b) “For Comparative Sociology of Law: Review Essay of Friedman, Perdomo and Gomez, eds., Law in Many Societies.” 61 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 1017–1022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelken, David (2014) “Legal Culture and Social Change,” in D. Vanoverbeke, J. Maesschalck, D. Nelken, & S. Parmentier, eds., The Changing Role Of Law in Japan: Empirical Studies in Culture, Society and Policy Making, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 15–33.Google Scholar
Nelken, David (2015) “Afterword: Contesting Global Indicators,” in S.E Merry, K. Davis, and B. Kingsbury, eds., The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Petersen, Hanne (2008) “Legal Cultures on the Move.” 4 Retfaerd: Nordic Journal of Law and Justice 3–22.Google Scholar
Pound, Roscoe (1910) “Law in Books and Law in Action.” 44 American Law Review 12–36.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark, & Nakazato, Minoru (1989) “The Rational Litigant: Settlement Amounts and Verdict Rates in Japan.” 18 Journal of Legal Studies 263–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark, & Nakazato, Minoru (1999) Japanese Law: An Economic Approach, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Silbey, Susan (2005) “After Legal Consciousness.” 1 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 323–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silbey, Susan (2012) “J. Locke, op. cit. Invocations of Law on Snowy Streets,” in D. Nelken, ed., Using Legal Culture, London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 120–152.Google Scholar
Stanton, Thomas H. (2014) “Law and Economic Development: The Cautionary Tale of Colonial Burma.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 165–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn, ed. (1995) Shifting Contexts: Transformations in Anthropological Knowledge, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tanase, Takao (2010) Community and the Law: A Critical Reassessment of American Liberalism and Japanese Modernity, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trzcinski Leah, M., & Upham, Frank K. (2014) “Creating Law from the Ground Up: Land Law in Post-Conflict Cambodia.” 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanoverbeke, D., Maesschalck, J.Nelken, D.& Parmentier, S., eds. (2014) The Changing Role Of Law in Japan: Empirical Studies in Culture, Society and Policy Making, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Benda-Beckmann, Franz, & von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet (2012) “Why Not Legal Culture?” in D. Nelken, ed., Using Legal Culture, London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 86–103.Google Scholar
Webber, Jeremy (2004) “Culture, Legal Culture, and Legal Reasoning: A Comment on Nelken.” 29 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 27–36.Google Scholar
Whitman, James Q. (2005) “Response to Garland.” 4 Punishment and Society 389–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worldbank.org (2001) online: <http://72.14.221.104/search? q=cache:YebgTjDewqAJ:www1. worldbank.org/publicsector/legal/ruleoflawandevelopment> (last accessed 9 June 2014).+(last+accessed+9+June+2014).>Google Scholar