Law and Society in Transition: Toward Responsive Law

by Philippe Nonet, Robert A. Kagan (Introduction), Philip Selznick

Year by year, law seems to penetrate ever larger realms of social, political, and economic life, generating both praise and blame. Nonet and Selznick's Law and Society in Transition explains in accessible language the primary forms of law as a social, political, and normative phenomenon. They illustrate with great clarity the fundamental difference between repressive law, riddled with raw conflict and the accommodation of special interests, and responsive law, the reasoned effort to realize an ideal of polity. To make jurisprudence relevant, legal, political, and social theory must be reintegrated. As a step in this direction, Nonet and Selznick attempt to recast jurisprudential issues in a social science perspective. They construct a valuable framework for analyzing and assessing the worth of alternative modes of legal ordering. The volume's most enduring contribution is the authors' typology-repressive, autonomous, and responsive law. This typology of law is original and especially useful because it incorporates both political and jurisprudential aspects of law and speaks directly to contemporary struggles over the proper place of law in democratic governance. In his new introduction, Robert A. Kagan recasts this classic text for the contemporary world. He sees a world of responsive law in which legal institutions-courts, regulatory agencies, alternative dispute resolution bodies, police departments-are periodically studied and redesigned to improve their ability to fulfill public expectations. Schools, business corporations, and governmental bureaucracies are more fully pervaded by legal values. Law and Society in Transition describes ways in which law changes and develops. It is an inspiring vision of a politically responsive form of governance, of special interest to those in sociology, law, philosophy, and politics.

Genres: Law

150 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Amy]

An interesting summary of different approaches but a little over the head of a n00b like me

[Paige]

Not going to give a rating because I'm not familiar enough with legal theory work to have much to compare it to, but I do want to give a review.

This "book" is really a long essay (~120 pages) outlining what the authors Nonet & Selznick see as the three types of law: repressive, autonomous, and responsive.

Repressive: the goal is control, and the law is mainly an instrument of the government's power, used to prove its legitimacy. Coercion and external punishment may be used when the subjects of the law haven't passively acquiesced (yet) and internalized the government's moral code

Autonomous: the goal is fairness and process (not necessarily *justice*). Attempts to separate law from politics, so the division between law and the politics du jour is very distinct, and legal bodies (like courts) aren't supposed to have clear opinions or leanings in the way they evenly enforce rules. Bureaucracy is the name of the game

Responsive: the goal is justice, law that competently serves the public. Legal participation isn't just for jurists, in fact authority would be delegated to several institutions, and criticism of the law from the public itself is welcomed.

If the book's title ("Law and Society in Transition: Toward Responsive Law"), isn't enough of a clue, the authors believe responsive law should be the goal of a polity. However they discuss strengths, weakness, and outcomes of all 3 kinds of law they outline.

While published in 1978, much of what they discuss remains relevant, and I found myself finding links to recent events and dynamics - the conversations around defunding the police, the complicated bureaucracy (viz. BS) around the administration of public benefits, etc.

Is it a bit dense? I mean, yeah. While you can expect a text like this to use a different parlance than, say, an article you'd read in the paper, or a twitter thread (bruh...), I didn't find it so difficult to get through that it outweighed my interest. I also imagine if you frequently read theory, it wouldn't be as much of an adjustment.

Learn from me - If you're not familiar with terms like positivism, formalism vs realism, attenuate (not a legal word, but the authors seem to love this word), or instrumentalism, you're gonna want to look them up as you go along, or some points might just go over your head the first time around.

Overall, I found this to be a worthwhile read! Would recommend if the structure of law and its relationship to progress interests you

[Cak Muchtarom]

very interesting for to day