Law and Society

This 53rd volume of Scandinavian Studies in Law (Sc.St.L.) is dedicated to the subject and perspectives of Sociology of law. The volume comprises 22 articles and is divided into five sections: theoretical aspects of law, inherent tensions within sociology of law as a science, legal cultures and legal reasoning, the legal profession, and finally, empirical studies primarily dealing with the consequences of law.

Sociology of law is a branch of legal science which provides an external perspective on law and the legal system. The approach has both scientific and practical consequences for the study of law. The external perspective leads the scholar to raise other than dogmatic questions about the proper application of law in different situations. Noticeable is also that there is a distinction between sociology of law and socio-legal studies or legal sociology. In the socio-legal perspective the sociological part seeks merely to contribute to an understanding of law on its own terms. Legal sociology has thus been labelled an auxiliary science to legal science. Sociology of law, on the other hand, claims to be an academic subject in its own right.