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Thinking Disputes: An Essay on the Origins of the Dispute Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Maureen Cain  and
Kalman Kulcsar
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Abstract

The paper identifies five presumptions of dispute theorizing: universality, ideological functionalism, settlement by courts, qualitative identity of the parties, and comparability. It is argued that these presumptions derive from or are related to the methodology of dispute theorizing, which is idealist either in the form of abstracted empiricism or logical deduction. Reasons for the sudden upsurge in dispute theorizing are discussed. Concluding, the authors evaluate attempts by dispute theorists to break away from the presumptions identified, and indicate some empirically limited but theoretically useful possibilities for futher work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , 1982 , pp. 375 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper is being published in The Study of Disputes (eds. M. Cain and K. Kulcsar), 1982. It was first presented in September, 1980, at a meeting organized by the Institute of Sociology of Law for Europe and the European Centre for Research and Documentation in the Social Sciences, Vienna, which took place in Copenhagen.

We are grateful to our colleagues in the joint ISLE/Vienna Centre Law and Dispute Treatment (LEG) Project, whose incisive criticisms have encouraged repeated re-appraisal of our ideas. Moreover, without their collaboration over several years, these ideas would not have been generated. The responsibility for these arguments is, however, our own. In addition we express our thanks to Joel Grossman who, in accepting this article, also sent us advance copies of the Special Issue of the Review (Vol. 15, nos. 3-4, 1980-81) so that we could take note of those papers which most closely touched upon our own position. Finally, we thank Richard Abel, David Nelken, and Simon Roberts, who have also commented upon the manuscript.

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