German sociology of law: A case of path dependency

Abstract

German sociology of law has developed along a peculiar path which is still shaping its development today. Unlike other special areas of sociology that extended sociologists' inquiry to new fields, the sociology of law was founded mainly by lawyers in the early twentieth century as a tool for enhanced professional practice. The sociology of law became part of a struggle over the academic identity of jurisprudence. This first wave of German sociology of law was then overshadowed by a second wave in the 1960s and 1970s along the lines of legal reform and radical scholarship. Today, the sociology of law in Germany is receiving renewed interest under the labels of empirical legal research and of inter- and transdisciplinarity, and scholars are to a large degree still driven by political interests. © 2012, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.