Volume 25, Issue 2

To date, sociology of law is not very much interested in doctrinal law, i.e. in the methodically controlled activity of interpreting codified legal norms and its results. Sociology of law has as its subject matter the empirical social reality of law. Established rules of interpreting the codified law have their part in constituting the social reality of law - provided that they are observed by the courts. Thus, the sociologists’ lack of interest in doctrinal law is based on the assumption (implicitely or explicitely) that doctrinal law does not significantely contribute in such a way to the constitution of social reality. The paper examines paths of development in the sociology of law that have fostered this assumption. Discussing them, it is argued that there is reason to reevaluate the sociological relevance of doctrinal jurisprudence.

Characteristic for the current development of mediation in Germany is a successive widening of its fields of application. In this process little attention is paid to the question whether the new mode of conflict resolution suits the forms of conflict concerned. In order to deal with this question sociologically, a frame of reference is needed that outlines mediation’s requirements of conflict situations. The article proposes a typological concept that focuses on the specific pragmatic of forms of conflict resolution. It is argued that, compared to other types of third-party-intervention, mediation requires the conflict parties to have an extensive cooperative orientation, although practical cooperation is limited. One of the major tasks of the mediator is the vicarious safeguarding of the given cooperative basis.

Instead of incapacitation people who are legally incompetent are entitled to be taken care of by qualified professionals or voluntary helpers. This is caused by a reform which has been established in German law in 1992. However an increasing number of professionals have been entrusted with the consequence of a cost explosion, which is not acceptable anymore for the federal States. This contribution is the first empirical study which focuses on causes of the development of this cost explosion.

In the following article the question will be discussed as to whether local actors in East German municipalities tend - fiveteen years after reunification - to use legal provisions for bargaining strategies and informal arrangements in order to overcome the rigidities of the (often over-regulated) „Rechtsstaat“. Drawing on an implementation and evaluation study the findings of which this article is based on, the attempt is being made to describe the transition from the initially legally nihilistic („rechtsnihilistisch“) or even „pre-modern“ model of public administration to the current cooperative and „negotiating“ one, which has also been labeled as a „post-classic“ type of bureaucracy. With regard to recent debates on „(Good) Public Governance“ according to which the degree of non-hierarchical and cooperative interaction in the Public Sector is considered as an indicator for its „modernity“, the question will be raised as to whether this shift can actually be referred to as a modernisation of Public Administration.

For Durkheim crime represents a normal and necessary societal phenomenon. Crime has functions which are important for the preservation and development of society. Through crimes norms are symbolically emphasized, while the bond between members of society is strenghtened and the future moral is anticipated. Against this background, crime prevention which is currently spreading not only in German communities, seems to have little chance to be successful and, moreover, to have negative effects on societal development. This article examines in which way crime prevention fulfills functions which reinforce or complement those of crime. Thus, crime prevention may help to demonstrate the control capacity of the state, to demonstrate the content of norms, to provide identity to and enforce solidarity among citizens.

Bruno Latour’s La fabrique du droit offers an ethological account of law as a specific regime of véridiction (truth-enunciation). Although Latour focuses on France’s Conseil d’Etat, which is by any standard a quite peculiar institution, his intensive exploration of the practices, routines and dispositions which condition the making of legal judgment in that setting looks beyond the particular institution to the broader dimension of law’s implication in society. More specifically, the Conseil d’Etat serves as a foil for a comparison between the court and the laboratory as a site of scientific véridiction. This article reflects on some aspects of this comparative ethology, focusing, first, on the question whether law as a technologically impoverished set of practices might indeed be illuminated by a comparison with the technologically-mediated practices that animate the laboratory, and, second, on the possibility of productive engagement between Latour’s ethological approach and alternative ways of illuminating law’s native paradoxes.