Rechtssoziologie

Rechtssoziologie, or sociology of law, is an interdisciplinary field that analyzes the social dimensions of law and the ways in which legal orders both reflect and shape social life. It investigates how laws are created, implemented, and interpreted, and how social norms, power relations, institutions, and economic forces influence legal outcomes. The field also studies how law operates in everyday life, how legal cultures vary across societies, and how law interacts with other social structures such as politics, economy, and religion.

The roots of Rechtssoziologie lie in the work of Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922), who distinguished between the written legal order and the living law embedded in social relations and customary practices. Ehrlich’s idea of the living law highlighted that much regulation occurs outside formal statutes. His program, together with Max Weber’s analyses of legal rationalization, helped establish the sociological approach to jurisprudence and the study of law as a social phenomenon.

Methodologically, Rechtssoziologie employs empirical research and theory, including quantitative analyses of courts and crime, qualitative interviews, ethnographic studies, and comparative research. Core topics encompass the social functions of law (conflict resolution, social integration, legitimacy), legal culture and everyday life, access to justice, legal pluralism and informal dispute resolution, and the distribution of legal power and inequality. It also examines how economic and political structures shape legal systems and outcomes.

In contemporary scholarship, the field intersects with legal anthropology, critical sociology, and interdisciplinary approaches. Notable figures associated with Rechtssoziologie include Eugen Ehrlich, Max Weber, Niklas Luhmann, Gunther Teubner, and Jürgen Habermas, among others.