Three approaches to law and culture

Cornell Law Review

Volumn 96, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 839-867

  Mautner, Menachem ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

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EID: 79959406789     PISSN: 00108847     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (329)

1. Annette B. Weiner, Culture and Our Discontents, Presidential Address of the 92nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Nov. 1993), in 97 AM. ANTHROPOLOGIST 14, 14-15 (1995).
2. The cultural studies movement emerged in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s and has since spread to many other countries. See GRAEME TURNER, BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES: AN INTRODUCTION 33-38 (3d ed. 2003);
3. Simon During, Introduction to THE CULTURAL STUDIES READER 1, 2-18 (Simon During ed., 3d ed. 2007). The central question that cultural studies scholars deal with is the connection between culture on the one hand and power relations between individuals and groups of individuals on the other hand.
4. See TURNER, supra, at 46;
5. Richard Johnson, What Is Cultural Studies Anyway?, SOC. TEXT, Winter 1986/87, at 38, 39. The cultural studies movement assumes that the culture in which individuals live plays an important role in creating and maintaining situations of stratification and control. Culture not only determines the categories through which individuals perceive the reality they live in but also attaches normative tags to these categories, reflecting the interests and worldviews of dominant social groups. In that way, cultural categories make an important contribution to preserving the stratifications from which dominant groups benefit
6. See TURNER, supra, at 53-55, 178-79. Therefore, cultural studies scholars aim to expose the mechanisms dirough which cultural representations are produced, propagated, and consumed.
7. See During, supra, at 25-27. However, cultural studies scholars view human beings as having reflexive and creative powers, not as passive products of cultural structuralization and constitution.
8. See TURNER, supra, at 23. Thus, cultural studies scholars do not view dominated groups as passive consumers of cultural representations that enhance their subordination. Rather, they assume that part of social life is the creation of cultural products that express opposition to the prevalent social and cultural orders. Cultural studies scholars assume that daily life is the arena in which cultural action takes place: individuals create meaning mainly dirough the cultural contents to which they are exposed in the course of dieir daily lives and dirough the practices in which they take part in the course of dieir daily lives.
9. See During, supra, at 39-40. The constitutive approach subsequently adopted this insight to the connection between law and culture.
10. See infra Part H. B.
11. Also, cultural studies scholars assume that acts of opposition to the prevailing social and cultural orders take place in the context of daily life. The cultural studies movement therefore analyzes the daily experience of individuals in all spheres of activity, such as the consumption of popular culture, rock culture, leisure, sports, fashion, food, shopping, TV, movie watching, advertising, sexual activity, and activities that take place with the family and at the workplace.
12. See TURNER, supra, at 50-68, 71;
13. During, supra, at 1;
14. Johnson, supra, at 3. The cultural studies movement assumes that the cultural contents that people are exposed to in the course of diese daily activities play an important role in fixating cultural categories that create and maintain social stratifications.
15. See TONY BENNETT, CULTURE: A REFORMER'S SCIENCE 40-59 (1998);
16. FRED INCUS, CULTURAL STUDIES 21-22 (1993);
17. see also Toby Miller, What It Is and What It Isn 't: Cultural Studies Meets Graduate-Student Labor, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 69, 70 (2001) ("By looking at how culture is used and transformed... cultural studies sees people not simply as consumers, but as potential producers of new social values and cultural languages.");
18. cf. Richard Handler, Raymond Williams, George Stocking, and Fm-de-Siicle U. S. Anthropology, 13 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 447, 447 (1998) ("One of the more vexing issues facing anthropologists today is the relationship of our discipline to an emergent discipline that has come to be called 'cultural studies.'... As many anthropologists see it, if a new discipline can get away with calling itself cultural studies, then it poses a direct challenge to the scholarly authority of anthropology....").
19. See generally JEFF LEWIS, CULTURAL STUDIES-THE BASICS (2002) (providing an in-depth discussion on cultural analysis).
20. See Victoria E. Bonnell & Lynn Hunt, Introduction to BEYOND THE CULTURAL TURN: NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE 1, 2-4 (Victoria E. Bonnell & Lynn Hunt eds., 1999);
21. see also Larry Ray & Andrew Sayer, Introduction to CULTURE AND ECONOMY AFTER THE CULTURAL TURN 1, 1-3 (Larry Ray & Andrew Sayer eds., 1999).
22. See discussion infra Part I.
23. See discussion infra Part II.
24. See discussion infra Part III.
25. See, e.g., John M. Conley & William M. O'Barr, Back to the Trobriands: The Enduring Influence of Malinowski's Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 27 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 847, 847-48 (2002) (describing Bronislaw Malinowski's application of ethnography to the study of law);
26. John M. Conley & William M. O'Barr, A Classic in Spite of Itself: The Cheyenne Way and the Case Method in Legal Anthropology, 29 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 179, 179-82 (2004) [hereinafter Conley & O'Barr, A Classic] (describing Karl Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel's use of an anthropological case method for studying the law of Cheyenne society);
27. Laura Nader, The Anthropological Study of Law, AM. ANTHROPOLOGIST, Dec. 1965, at 3, 3-10 (reviewing scholarship using "methodology of description" in the study of law and culture);
28. see also 12 LAW AND ANTHROPOLOGY: CURRENT LEGAL ISSUES 2008 (Michael Freeman & David Napier eds., 2009) (presenting a collection of papers about the state of law and anthropology scholarship today);
29. LAW AND ANTHROPOLOGY (Martha Mundy ed., 2002) (collecting works on the cross-cultural comparison of legal institutions);
30. LAW AND ANTHROPOLOGY: A READER (Sally Falk Moore ed., 2005) (collecting works applying anthropological analysis of enforceable norms to the study of law);
31. Laura Nader, THE LIFE OF THE LAW: ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROJECTS (2002) (collecting works applying anthropological methods to the study of law).
32. See, e.g., LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, THE LEGAL SYSTEM: A SOCIAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE 1-24 (1975) (describing the law as one of several social systems);
33. LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, THE REPUBLIC OF CHOICE: LAW, AUTHORITY, AND CULTURE 62-83 (1990) (arguing that law functions to effectuate individual choice);
34. Lawrence M. Friedman, Is There a Modern Legal Culture?, 7 RATIO JURIS 117, 117-19 (1994) (exploring "the legal culture of modern law")
35. Lawrence M. Friedman, Legal Culture and Social Development, in LAW AND THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES 1000, 1000-04 (Lawrence M. Friedman & Stewart Macaulay eds., 1969) (describing the cultural elements of a legal system).
36. But see ROGER COTTERRELL, LAW, CULTURE AND SOCIETY: LEGAL IDEAS IN THE MIRROR OF SOCIAL THEORY (2006) (applying social theory to law and concluding that the concept of legal culture lacks specification);
37. Roger Cotterrell, The Concept of Legal Culture, in COMPARING LEGAL CULTURES 13, 19-21 (David Nelken ed., 1997) (questioning the utility of the concept of legal culture).
38. See, e.g., PATRICIA EWICK & Susan S. Silbey, THE COMMON PLACE OF LAW: STORIES FROM EVERYDAY LIFE 34-35 (1998);
39. P. Ewick, Law and Everyday Life, in 12 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES 8457, 8459-60 (Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Bakes eds., 2001);
40. S. S. Silbey, Legal Culture and Legal Consciousness, in 13 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES 8623, 8627-28 (Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Bakes eds., 2001);
41. Susan S. Silbey, Making a Place for Cultural Analyses of Law, 17 LAW & SOC INQUIRY 39, 45-46 (1992). Scholars have applied the concept of legal consciousness to a variety of topics.
42. See, e.g., Erik D. Fritsvold, Under the Law: Legal Consciousness and Radical Environmental Activism, 34 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 799, 806-07 (2009) (proposing a new category of legal consciousness to describe radical environmentalists' view of law);
43. Austin Sarat, "... The Law Is All Over": Power, Resistance and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor, 2 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 343, 343-45 (1990) (describing the prominence of the law in the welfare recipient's consciousness);
44. Austin Sarat & William L. F. Felstiner, Lawyers and Legal Consciousness: Law Talk in the Divorce Lawyer's Office, 98 YALE L. J. 1663, 1664 (1989) (considering how lawyers shape people's attitudes toward the legal system);
45. Barbara Yngvesson, Inventing Law in Local Settings: Rethinking Popular Legal Culture, 98 YALE L. J. 1689, 1693 (1989) (exploring the relationship between the popular consciousness and law in county courts and neighborhood justice centers);
46. cf David Nelken, Law, Liability, and Culture, in FAULT LINES: TORT LAW AS CULTURAL PRACTICE 21, 22-23, 26-29 (David M. Engel & Michael McCann eds., 2009) (studying the relationship between cultural practices and tort law across jurisdictions).
47. See, e.g., RICHARD K. SHERWIN, WHEN LAW GOES POP 5, 8 (2000);
48. Jo Carrillo, Links and Choices: Popular Legal Culture in the Work of Lawrence M. Friedman, 17 S. CAL. INTERDISC. LJ. 1, 4-6 (2007);
49. Anthony Chase, Toward a Legal Theory of Popular Culture, 1986 WIS. L. REV. 527, 534-35;
50. Douglas J. Goodman, Approaches to Law and Popular Culture, 31 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 757, 757-58, 762-63 (2006);
51. Stewart Macaulay, Images of Law in Everyday Life: The Lessons of School, Entertainment, and Spectator Sports, Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association (May31, 1986), in 21 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 185, 185-86, 211-14 (1987);
52. Stewart Macaulay, Popular Legal Culture: An Introduction, 98 YALE L. J. 1545, 1547, 1551-54 (1989);
53. Jessica M. Silbey, What We Do When We Do Law and Popular Culture, 27 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 139, 144-45 (2002);
54. Symposium, Civil Litigation and Popular Culture, 50 DEPAUL L. REV. 421, 421-533 (2000).
55. See, e.g., JANE M. GAINES, CONTESTED CULTURE: THE IMAGE, THE VOICE, AND THE LAW (1991);
56. Wendy Griswold, American Character and the American Novel: An Expansion of Reflection Theory in the Sociology of Literature, 86 AM. J. SOC. 740, 41, 748-50 (1981);
57. Martha Woodmansee, The Cultural Work of Copyright: Legislating Authorship in Britain, 1837-1842, in LAW IN THE DOMAINS OF CULTURE 65 (Austin Sarat & Thomas R. Reams eds., 1998).
58. See, e.g., GAD BARZILAI, COMMUNITIES AND LAW: POLITICS AND CULTURES OF LEGAL IDENTITIES 2, 14 (2003);
59. SEBASTIAN POULTER, ETHNICITY, LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ENGUSH EXPERIENCE 12, 38 (1998);
60. AYELET SHACHAR, MULTICULTURAL JURISDICTIONS: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS 1-3, 26-28 (2001);
61. Sebastian Poulter, Muslim Headscarves in School: Contrasting Legal Approaches in England and France, 617 OXFORD J. LEGAL STUD. 43, 63-67 (1997);
62. Michel Rosenfeld, Human Rights, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism in Rhetoric, Ethics and Politics: A Pluralist Critique, 21 CARDOZO L. REV. 1225, 1229-30 (2000);
63. Madhavi Sunder, Cultural Dissent, 654 STAN. L. REV. 495, 500-02 (2001);
64. Madhavi Sunder, Piercing the Veil, 112 YALE L. J. 1399, 1409-10 (2003);
65. Leti Volpp, Feminism Versus Multiculturalism, 101 COLUM. L. REV. 1181, 1184-85 (2001); (Pubitemid 33625750)
66. see also Leti Volpp, Talking "Culture": Gender, Race, Nation, and the Politics of Multiculturalism, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 1573, 1573-76 (1996) (criticizing scholarly backlash to study of multiculturalism and law). (Pubitemid 126406329)
67. See, e.g., MULTICULTURAL JURISPRUDENCE: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE CULTURAL DEFENSE (Marie-Claire Foblets & Alison Dundes Renteln eds., 2009) (examining the cultural defense from a theoretical and international perspective);
68. ALISON DUNDES RENTELN, THE CULTURAL DEFENSE 5 (2004) (analyzing "the nature of the debate surrounding the admissibility of cultural evidence in the courtroom");
69. Paul W. Kahn, Comparative Constitutionalism in a New Key, 101 MICH. L. REV. (2003) 2677, 2678;
70. Nelken, supra note 9, at 1, 28-29;
71. Annelise Riles & Gregory S. Alexander, The Uses and Misuses of Culture in Legal Property Theory 5-7 (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
72. See, e.g., Amy J. Cohen, Thinking with Culture in Law and Development, 57 BUFF. L. REV. 511, 511-13 (2009);
73. Colloquium, Law, Culture, and Economic Development, 12 LAW & BUS. REV. AMERICAS 439 passim (2006).
74. See, e.g., NIKLAS LUHMANN, LAW AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM 230-73 (Fatima Kastner et al. eds., Klaus A. Ziegert trans., 2004);
75. GUNTHER TEUBNER, LAW AS AN AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM (Zenon Bankowski ed., Anne Bankowska & Ruth Adler trans., 1993);
76. Gunther Teubner, How the Law Thinks: Toward a Constructivist Epistemology of Law, 23 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 727, 730, 736 (1989);
77. Gunther Teubner, Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law, 17 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 239, 243, 245 (1983).
78. The study of law and culture has, to some extent, also been institutionalized. The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities has been holding annual conferences since the mid-1990s.
79. See ASLCH Annual Conference Information, ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF LAW, CULTURE AND THE HUMANITIES, http://www.law.syr.edu/academics/centers/lch/ conference.html (last visited Feb. 11, 2011).
80. Columbia Law School has a Center for the Study of Law and Culture (CSLC). See The Center for the Study of Law and Culture, COLUMBIA LAW SCH., http://www.law.columbia.edu/center-program/law-culture (last visited Feb. 11, 2011).
81. At the University of Southern California, there is a Center for Law, History and Culture. See USC Center for Law, History and Culture, USC GOULD SCH. OF LAW, http://lawweb.usc.edu/centers/clhc/home.htm (last visited Feb. 11, 2011).
82. The Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities regularly publishes articles dealing with law and culture. See Symposium, Approaches to the Cultural Study of Law, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 1 (2001). Furthermore, the Yale Law Journal published a symposium on popular legal culture in 1989.
83. See Symposium: Popular Legal Culture, 98 YALE LJ. 1545 (1989).
84. See H. S. Reiss, The Political Thought of the German Romantics, in THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE GERMAN ROMANTICS 1793-1815, at 1, 1-2 (H. S. Reiss ed., 1955);
85. see also ROGER BERKOWTTZ, THE GIFT OF SCIENCE: LEIBNIZ AND THE MODERN LEGAL TRADITION 16, 21 (2005) (discussing Leibniz's natural law theory).
86. See BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 21-22.
87. See id. at 1-6.
88. See id. at 60-61.
89. See id. at 67.
90. See id. at 106;
91. see also Reiss, supra note 17, at 1, 38.
92. See Friedrich Carl von Savigny, On the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence, in THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE GERMAN ROMANTICS 1793-1815, supra note 17, at 203, 209;
93. see also BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 112-13;
94. Hermann Klenner, Savigny's Research Program of the Historical School of Law and its Intellectual Impact in 19th Century Berlin, 37 AM. J. GOMP. L. 67, 72 (1989);
95. Mathias Reimann, The Historical School Against Codification: Savigny, Carter, and the Defeat of the New York Civil Code, 37 AM. J. COMP. L. 95, 97 (1989);
96. Reiss, supra note 17, at 1.
97. See BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 113;
98. Reiss, supra note 17, at 38-39;
99. Savigny, supra note 23, at 205-06.
100. See BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 114, 117-18.
101. See id. at 115-16.
102. See Reiss, supra note 17, at 3.
103. See Savigny, supra note 23, at 205.
104. See BERKOWTTZ, supra note 17, at 113.
105. See id. at 113;
106. Savigny, supra note 23, at 205-06.
107. See Reiss, supra note 17, at 39;
108. Savigny, supra note 23, at 206-07.
109. See BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 123;
110. Reiss, supra note 17, at 39.
111. See Reiss, supra note 17, at 4, 6-8.
112. See BERKOWTTZ, supra note 17, at 117, 120-21;
113. Savigny, supra note 23, at 208-09.
114. See BERKOWTTZ, supra note 17, at 107, 141.
115. See Klenner, supra note 23, at 69-70, 79.
116. See Chi. Cultural Studies Grp., Critical Multiculturalism, in MULTICULTURALISM: A CRITICAL READER 114, 115 (David Theo Goldberg ed., 1994).
117. See SHACHAR, supra note 12, at 1-2 & n. 5;
118. David Theo Goldberg, Introduction: Multicultural Conditions, in MULTICULTURALISM: A CRITICAL READER, supra note 37, at 1, 3-5.
119. See BERKOWITZ, supra note 17, at 113.
120. See, e.g., Robert Brightman, Forget Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification, 10 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 509, 526-27 (1995);
121. Chi. Cultural Studies Grp., supra note 37, at 114-15;
122. Paul DiMaggio, Culture and Cognition, 23 ANN. REV. SOC. 263, 265 (1997);
123. William H. Sewell. Jr., Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille, 25 THEORY & SOC'Y 841, 842-43, 861-62 (1996);
124. William H. Sewell, Jr., The Concept (s) of Culture, in BEYOND THE CULTURAL TURN: NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE, supra note 3, at 35, 35-37 (Victoria E. Bonnell & Lynn Hunt eds., 1999) [hereinafter Sewell, Concepts of Culture].
125. See Sewell, Concepts of Culture, supra note 40, at 49-50 (arguing that external spatial and institutional forces influence the meaning of all cultural symbols).
126. See ANN SWIDLER, TALK OF LOVE: HOW CULTURE MATTERS 12-13, 44-45 (2001);
127. Theodore R. Schatzki, Introduction to THE PRACTICE TURN IN CONTEMPORARY THEORY 1, 7 (Theodore R. Schatzki et al. eds., 2001);
128. Sewell, Concepts of Culture, supra note 40, at 47, 50-51;
129. A. Swidler, Cultural Expression and Action, in 5 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES 3063, 3063-64 (Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Bakes eds., 2001) [hereinafter Swidler, Cultural Expression];
130. Ann Swidler, Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies, 51 AM. SOC. REV. 273, 276-277 (1986) [hereinafter Swidler, Culture in Action].
131. See generally PIERRE BOURDIEU, OUTLINE OF A THEORY OF PRACTICE 10-22 (Richard Nice trans., 1977).
132. His major book, Philosophy of Law, appeared in 1914.
133. See JOSEF KOHLER, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW (Adalbert Albrecht trans., Augustus M. Kelley 1969) (1914).
134. For discussion of Kohler's jurisprudence, see ROSCOE POUND, INTERPRETATIONS OF LEGAL HISTORY 141-51 (1923);
135. see also EDGAR BODENHEIMER, JURISPRUDENCE: THE PHILOSOPHY AND METHOD OF THE LAW 113-14 (rev. ed. 1974).
136. See CHRIS JENKS, CULTURE 18-22 (2d ed. 2005);
137. KOHLER, supra note 43, at 36.
138. See KOHLER, supra note 43, at 12, 22, 49.
139. See id. at 50-51, 81, 135, 177.
140. See id. at 4-7, 32.
141. See Austin Sarat & Thomas R. Kearns, The Cultural Lives of Law, in LAW IN THE DOMAINS OF CULTURE, supra note 11, at 1, 5.
142. See generally R. Cotterrell, Law as Constitutive, in 12 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, supra note 9, at 8497, 8497-98 (describing the sociological and critical-legal-studies roots of the constitutive approach).
143. CLIFFORD GEERTZ, Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective, in LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: FURTHER ESSAYS IN INTERPRETIVE ANTHROPOLOGY 167, 230 (1983);
144. see also Sarat & Kearns, supra note 48, at 6.
145. See GEERTZ, supra note 49, at 232-33.
146. Id.
147. Id. at 232.
148. Id. at 182, 184, 230, 232. Geertz's approach is dialectic: law-much like science, art, and religion-constitutes social relations and is constituted by them.
149. The cultural studies movement is a group of scholars who maintained that culture plays a decisive role in constituting social life and in producing and maintaining power relations between individuals and between social groups.
150. See supra note 2.
151. See, e.g., MARK KELMAN, A GUIDE TO CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES 242-68 (1987);
152. GARY MINDA, POSTMODERN LEGAL MOVEMENTS: LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE AT CENTURY'S END 106-27 (1995);
153. Paul Schiff Berman, Telling a Less Suspicious Story: Notes Toward a Non-Skeptical Approach to Legal/Cultural Analysis, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 95, 109-10 (2001);
154. Pierre Bourdieu, The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field, 38 HASTINGS LJ. 805, 838-39 (1987);
155. Cotterrell, supra note 48, at 8497-98;
156. Bryant G. Garth & Austin Sarat, Justice and Power in Law and Society Research: On the Contested Careers of Core Concepts, in JUSTICE AND POWER IN SOCIOLEGAL STUDIES 1, 9 (Bryant G. Garth & Austin Sarat eds., 1998);
157. Robert W. Gordon, Critical Legal Histories, 36 STAN. L. REV. 57, 109 (1984) [hereinafter Gordon, Critical Legal Histories];
158. Robert W. Gordon, New Developments in Legal Theory, in THE POLITICS OF LAW: A PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE 281, 288-90 (David Kairys ed., 1982);
159. Carol J. Greenhouse, Constructive Approaches to Law, Culture, and Identity, 28 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 1231, 1231 (1994);
160. Paul W. Kahn, Freedom, Autonomy, and the Cultural Study of Law, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 141, 149-50 (2001);
161. David Kairys, Introduction to THE POLITICS OF LAW: A PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE, supra, at 1, 6-7;
162. Naomi Mezey, Law as Culture, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 35, 48 (2001) [hereinafter Mezey, Law as Culture];
163. Naomi Mezey, Out of the Ordinary: Law, Power, Culture, and the Commonplace, 26 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 145, 153 (2001);
164. Robert Post, Introduction: The Relatively Autonomous Discourse of Law, in LAW AND THE ORDER OF CULTURE vii, vii (Robert Post ed., 1991);
165. Austin D. Sarat, Redirecting Legal Scholarship in Law Schools, 12 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 129, 135-43 (2000)
166. (reviewing PAUL W. KAHN, THE CULTURAL STUDY OF LAW: RECONSTRUCTING LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP (1999));
167. Austin Sarat & Thomas R. Kearns, Editorial Introduction to LAW IN EVERYDAY LIFE (Austin Sarat & Thomas R. Kearns eds., 1993);
168. Austin Sarat & Jonathan Simon, Beyond Legal Realism?: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Situation of Legal Scholarship, 13 YALE J. L. & HUMAN. 3, 9-13 (2001);
169. David M. Trubek, Where the Action Is: Critical Legal Studies and Empiricism, 36 STAN. L. REV. 575, 589 (1984).
170. See generally KAHN, supra (proposing a framework for studying the culture of the law);
171. LAW IN THE DOMAINS OF CULTURE, supra note 11 (collecting case studies in the field of sociocultural legal studies).
172. Bourdieu, supra note 55, at 838-39.
173. See, e.g., P. S. Atiyah & Robert S. Summers, FORM AND SUBSTANCE IN ANGLO-AMERICAN LAW 5-21 (1987);
174. MORTON J. HORWITZ, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW 1870-1960, at 9-19 (1992);
175. Larry Alexander, "With Me, It's AH or Nuthin": Formalism in Law and Morality, 66 U. CHI. L. REV. 530, 531 (1999);
176. Morton J. Horwitz, The Rise of Legal Formalism, 19 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 251, 252 (1975);
177. Duncan Kennedy, Legal Formality, 2 J. LEGAL STUD. 351, 352-53 (1973);
178. Brian Leiter, Positivism, Formalism, Realism, 99 COLUM. L. REV. 1138, 1144-46 (1999)
179. (reviewing ANTHONY J. SEBOK, LEGAL POSITIVISM IN AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE (1998));
180. Fredrick Schauer, Formalism, 97 YALE LJ. 509, 510 (1988);
181. Ronen Shamir, Formal and Substantive Rationality in American Law: A Weberian Perspective, 2 SOC. & LEG. STUD. 45, 47-49 (1993).
182. See Shamir, supra note 57, at 47.
183. See Kennedy, supra note 57, at 355.
184. Where people follow a procedure, the outcome of their actions is embedded, so to speak, in the procedure, and the personality of the person that applies the procedure is not supposed to affect the outcome.
185. See HORWITZ, supra note 57, at 16-17.
186. See Kennedy, supra note 57, at 359.
187. ANTHONY T. KRONMAN, THE LOST LAWYER: FAILING IDEALS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 185-225 (1993);
188. Hanoch Dagan, The Realist Conception of Law, 57 U. TORONTO L. J. 607, 612-613 (2007).
189. See, e.g., BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO, THE NATURE OF THE JUDICIAL PROCESS 101-02 (1921);
190. FEUX S. COHEN, ETHICAL SYSTEMS AND LEGAL IDEALS: AN ESSAY ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF LEGAL CRITICISM 276-85 (Great Seal Books 1969) (1933);
191. Felix S. Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 COLUM. L. REV. 809, 844 (1935);
192. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Privilege, Malice, and Intent, 8 HARV. L. REV. 1, 3, 7, 9 (1894);
193. O. W. Holmes, The Path of the Law, Address at Boston University School of Law (Jan. 8, 1897), in 10 HARV. L. REV. 457, 467-68, 469 (1897);
194. Karl N. Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism-Responding to Dean Pound, 44 HARV. L. REV. 1222, 1222-23, 1236, 1249 (1931);
195. Joseph William Singer, Legal Realism Now, 76 CALIF. L. REV. 465, 473, 474, 499-503 (1988)
196. (reviewing LAURA KALMAN, LEGAL REALISM AT YALE: 1927-1960 (1986)).
197. -347 U. S. 483 (1954).
198. See Sarat & Simon, supra note 55, at 19.
199. See KELMAN, supra note 55, at 253-55.
200. EVVICK & SILBEY, supra note 9, at 34-35.
201. Sarat & Kearns, supra note 48, at 10.
202. See supra note 2.
203. See Cotterrell, supra note 48, at 8498;
204. Sarat & Simon, supra note 55, at 19.
205. Gordon, Critical Legal Histories, supra note 55. In a similar fashion, John Rawls claims that citizens living in liberal democracies can unite behind a shared political conception of the principles governing the functioning of the central institutions of their states because people who grow up in a liberal democracy internalize the "shared fundamental ideas" that are "implicit in the public political culture" of their country.
206. See JOHN RAWLS, POLITICAL LIBERALISM (1993) 100-01.
207. See Kahn, supra note 55, at 149 ("[L]aw is a set of sites of social conflict....").
208. See Sarat & Simon, supra note 55, at 19-20 & n. 92.
209. See infra notes 79-82 and accompanying text.
210. See Robert M. Cover, The Supreme Court 1982 Term-Forward: Nomos and Narrative, 97 HARV. L. REV. 4, 7-8 (1983).
211. See Roscoe Pound, Law in Books and Law in Action, 44 AM. L. REV. 12, 13 (1910);
212. see also Garth & Sarat, supra note 55, at 1, 4-6.
213. See Garth & Sarat, supra note 55, at 6-7 (summarizing a number of gap studies).
214. See Mezey, Law as Culture, supra note 55, at 47 (rejecting the idea that law and culture are indistinguishable).
215. Empirical studies show this phenomenon.
216. See id. at 51-54.
217. See Sally Engle Merry, Resistance and the Cultural Power of Law, Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association (June 18, 1994), in 29 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 11, 18-20 (1995).
218. See, e.g., SWIDLER, supra note 42, at 6-8;
219. Swidler, Cultural Expression, supra note 42, at 3067-68;
220. Swidler, Culture in Action, supra note 42, at 276-82.
221. Indeed, lawyers are familiar with the way judges and lawyers themselves may resort to creative interpretation when the need arises to neutralize a legal imperative even when such an imperative is drafted in unequivocal language.
222. See Paul Gewirtz, Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law, in LAW'S STORIES: NARRATIVE AND RHETORIC IN THE LAW 2, 11-12 (Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds., 1996);
223. Kairys, supra note 55, at 2;
224. David Kairys, Legal Reasoning, in THE POLITICS OF LAW: A PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE, supra note 55, at 11, 14;
225. Trubek, supra note 55, at 578.
226. Critical legal studies scholars subsequently adopted and developed realism's descriptive argument.
227. See, e.g., Charles E. Clark & David M. Trubek, The Creative Role of the Judge: Restraint and Freedom in the Common Law Tradition, 71 YALE LJ. 255, 255 (1961);
228. Daniel A. Farber & Suzanna Sherry, Legal Storytelling and Constitutional Law: The Medium and the Message, in LAW'S STORIES: NARRATIVE AND RHETORIC IN THE LAW, supra note 84, at 37, 52;
229. Gordon, Critical Legal Histories, supra note 55;
230. Kairys, supra note 55;
231. Kairys, supra note 84;
232. Trubek, supra note 55. Many other scholars also adopted realism's descriptive argument.
233. See RONALD DWORKIN, LAW'S EMPIRE 510 (1986);
234. STEPHEN GUEST, Ronald Dworkin 214 (2d ed. 1997);
235. KAHN, supra note 55;
236. Berman, supra note 55, at 138;
237. Gewirtz, supra note 84;
238. John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law, 1995 WIS. L. REV. 199, 232;
239. Sarat & Felstiner, supra note 9, at 1667-68;
240. Richard L. Revesz, Environmental Regulation, Ideology, and the D. C. Circuit, 83 VA. L. REV. 1717, 1766-67 (1997).
241. Menachem Mautner, Luck in the Courts, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 217, 219 (2007);
242. see also GUEST, supra note 85, at 214;
243. Clark & Trubek, supra note 85, at 256.
244. See generally BRONISLAW MAUNOWSKI, CRIME AND CUSTOM IN SAVAGE SOCIETY (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1989) (1926) (discussing anthropological studies in primitive law).
245. K. N. Llewellyn & E. Adamson Hoebel, THE CHEYENNE WAY: CONFLICT AND CASE LAW IN PRIMITIVE JURISPRUDENCE (1941).
246. Steven Wilf writes that The Cheyenne Way was the last book to appear in an eightyyear scholarship on "legal primitivism" which, "[i]n a symbolic binary code of opposites", was perceived as the ultimate "other" of legal modernism. See Steven Wilf, The Invention of Legal Primitivism, 10 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 485, 489 (2009). Llewellyn and Hoebel "treated the Cheyenne as a world apart."
247. Id. at 507;
248. see also KARL N. LLEWELLYN, THE BRAMBLE BUSH: THE CLASSIC LECTURES ON THE LAW AND LAW SCHOOL 115 (2008) (stating that "[b]y civilization I mean what anthropologists call culture" and demonstrating that Llewellyn thought about culture the way anthropologists of his time did).
249. Sometimes Llewellyn refers to the law of the courts in terms of "culture."
250. See KARL LLEWELLYN, THE CASE LAW SYSTEM IN AMERICA 9-11, 113 (Paul Gewirtz ed., Michael Ansaldi trans., 1989) [hereinafter LLEWELLYN, CASE LAW SYSTEM];
251. KARL N. LLEWELLYN, THE COMMON LAW TRADITION: DECIDING APPEALS 49-50 (William S. Hein & Co., Inc. 1996) (1960) [hereinafter LLEWELLYN, COMMON LAW TRADITION].
252. See supra note 3.
253. An additional connection between Llewellyn and the concept of culture can be found in the drafting of the Uniform Commercial Code (Code) and in Llewellyn's vision of the Code's application. On the one hand, in drafting the Code, Llewellyn regularly drew on the input of market experts. On the other hand, implicit in the Code's famous standards ("good faith", "reasonableness", "usage of trade") is the expectation that judges will apply norms prevalent in the relevant business communities to resolve commercial disputes.
254. See generally Conley & O'Barr, A Classic, supra note 7;
255. Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, The Limits of Vision: Karl Llewellyn and the Merchant Rules, 100 HARV. L. REV. 465 (1987);
256. Imad D. Abyad, Note, Commercial Reasonableness in Karl Llewellyn's Uniform Commercial Code Jurisprudence, 83 VA. L. REV. 429 (1997).
257. See LLEWELLYN, supra note 89, at 76, 77;
258. LLEWELLYN, CASE LAW SYSTEM, supra note 90, at 76-77, 80;
259. LLEWELLYN, COMMON LAW TRADITION, supra note 90, at 34-61, 119, 154-57, 201, 203.
260. See LLEWELLYN, CASE LAW SYSTEM, supra note 90, at 76-77;
261. LLEWELLYN, COMMON LAW TRADITION, supra note 90, at 26, 53, 154-57, 205, 213-23. An approach similar to Llewellyn's can be found in the writings of two other prominent realists, Felix Cohen
262. see Cohen, supra note 64, and Benjamin Cardozo
263. see CARDOZO, supra note 64, at 105-06, 108-10, 174.
264. See LLEWELLYN, supra note 89, at 77.
265. See LLEWELLYN, COMMON LAW TRADITION, supra note 90, at 34-35 (noting the "known bench" phenomenon arising from the professional socialization of judges).
266. Where luck determines what happens in our lives, two elements are involved: (1) a plurality of possible outcomes-namely, that too or more (good or bad) outcomes may ensue; (2) lack of control-namely, there is no way, or no significant way, of ensuring a particular outcome.
267. Mautner, supra note 86, at 217;
268. see also S. L. HURLEY, JUSTICE, LUCK, AND KNOWLEDGE 106-32 (2003);
269. THOMAS NAGEL, MORTAL QUESTIONS 24-38 (1979).
270. The way that judges interfere in our lives is, to a great extent, a matter of luck. First, in many cases, there is a plurality of outcomes by which a legal dispute may be resolved. Second, we are not supposed to have any way of controlling the judge that determines our case; in a decent society, the basic norm we expect judges to abide by is impartiality.
271. See Mautner, supra note 86, at 217.
272. Compare LLEWELLYN, COMMON LAW TRADITION, supra note 90, at 34 ("[O]ne must not forget that a particular bench tends strongly to develop a characteristic going tradition not only of ways of work but of outlook, and of working attitudes of one judge toward another.")
273. with id. at 35 ("Per contra, there are situations... where part of the bench's personnel dominate the deciding and where it may be impossible to know in advance which of the personnel will move into the driver's seat.").
274. See JAMES BOYD WHITE, HERACLES' BOW: ESSAYS ON THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF THE LAW (1985) [hereinafter WHITE, HERACLES' BOW];
275. JAMES BOYD WHITE, JUSTICE AS TRANSLATION: AN ESSAY IN CULTURAL AND LEGAL CRITICISM (1990) [hereinafter WHITE, JUSTICE];
276. James Boyd White, What Can a Lawyer Learn from Literature?, 102 HARV. L. REV. 2014 (1989)
277. (reviewing RICHARD A. POSNER, LAW AND LITERATURE: A MISUNDERSTOOD RELATION (1988)).
278. See WHITE, JUSTICE, supra note 99, at 101-02.
279. Id. at 157.
280. WHITE, HERACLES' BOW, supra note 99, at 28-48.
281. See id. at 28, 215-42.
282. See supra Part II.
283. See WHITE, JUSTICE, supra note 99, at 80;
284. White, supra note 99, at 2047.
285. The essence of republican political theory is deliberation among equals over a common good they are to pursue as a collective. See generally PHILIP PETTIT, REPUBLICANISM: A THEORY OF FREEDOM AND GOVERNMENT (1997) (distinguishing republicanism from liberal and communitarian philosophies);
286. MAURIZIO VIROU, REPUBLICANISM (Antony Shugaar trans., 1999) (exploring the core ideals of political republicanism);
287. Knud Haakonssen, Republicanism, in 2 A COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 729, 729-33 (Robert E. Goodin et al. eds., 2d ed. 1993)
288. Morton J. Horwitz, Republicanism and Liberalism in American Constitutional Thought, 29 WM. & MARY L. REV. 57 (1987) (tracing the history of the debate between republicanism and liberal political theory);
289. Cynthia V. Ward, The Limits of "Liberal Republicanism": Why Group-Based Remedies and Republican Citizenship Don't Mix, 91 COLUM. L. REV. 581 (1991) (addressing the history and shortcomings of liberal republicanism). Republicanism is to be contrasted with "interest group politics", the dominant view of politics in the United States in recent decades that sees politics as a sphere governed by the logic of the market-a want-regarding sphere in which rival self-interested groups that constitute civil society compete over the distribution of material and symbolic goods.
290. See PETTIT, supra, at 202-05, 256.
291. For White, in contrast, but very much in tune with the republican worldview, lawmaking through adjudication is a deliberative activity conducted on the basis of procedural equality, in which a state organ-a court-is assigned the task of defining the common good of a society.
292. See WHITE, JUSTICE, supra note 99, at 107-12. White's jurisprudence is an important reminder that beyond the communitarian-liberal debate over the division of labor between the state (communitarians) and civil society (liberals) in determining a country's "common way of life", state courts play an important role in doing exacdy that
293. See White, supra note 99, at 2046-47;
294. see also WHITE, JUSTICE, supra note 99, at 155-57.
295. WHITE, JUSTICE, supra note 99, at 157.
296. See id.; White, supra note 99, at 2045.
297. See generally BOURDIEU: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES (Craig Calhoun et al. eds., 1993);
298. BOURDIEU: A CRITICAL READER (Richard Shusterman ed., 1999) (collecting essays on Bourdieu's social theories);
299. PIERRE BOURDIEU, THE FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION: ESSAYS ON ART AND LITERATURE (Randal Johnson ed., 1993) [hereinafter BOURDIEU, FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION] (developing the theory of the cultural field);
300. BOURDIEU, supra note 42 (developing the habitus thesis);
301. BRIDGET FOWLER, PIERRE BOURDIEU AND CULTURAL THEORY: CRITICAL INVESTIGATIONS (1997) (describing Bourdieu's cultural-capital theory);
302. DEREK ROBBINS, BOURDIEU AND CULTURE (2000) (analyzing Bourdieu's work from a sociological and cultural-studies perspective);
303. JEN WEBB et al., UNDERSTANDING BOURDIEU (2002) (providing a contemporary reading of Bourdieu's sociocultural philosophy);
304. Swidler, Cultural Expression, supra note 42 (discussing Bourdieu's habitus concept);
305. Lore Wacquant, Habitus, in INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY 317 (Jens Beckert & Milan Zafirovski eds., 2006).
306. See BOURDIEU, supra note 42, at 72-73, 81-82, 85-87.
307. See id. at 78-79, 86-87.
308. See PIERRE BOURDIEU, IN OTHER WORDS: ESSAYS TOWARDS A REFLEXIVE SOCIOLOGY 87-93 (Matthew Adamson trans., 1990);
309. BOURDIEU, supra note 42, at 171-83;
310. Pierre Bourdieu, The Forms of Capital, in HANDBOOK OF THEORY AND RESEARCH FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION 241, 242-43 (John G. Richardson ed., 1986);
311. Pierre Bourdieu, What Makes a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups, 32 BERKELEY J. SOC. 1, 9-14 (1987).
312. See BOURDIEU, FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION, supra note 110, at 6, 30-73.
313. See Bourdieu, supra note 55, at 807-08, 842.
314. See id. at 825-26, 833.
315. See id. at 808-09.
316. See id. at 824-26 & n. 36, 842-43.
317. See generally STANLEY FISH, IS THERE A TEXT IN THIS CLASS?: THE AUTHORITY OF INTERPRETIVE COMMUNITIES passim (1980) [hereinafter FISH, IS THERE A TEXT];
318. STANLEY FISH, Dennis Martinez and the Uses of Theory, in DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY 372, 372-98 (1989);
319. STANLEY FISH, Fish v. Fiss, in DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY, supra, at 120, 120-40 [hereinafter Fish, Fish v. Fiss];
320. STANLEY FISH, Still Wrong After All These Years, in DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY, supra, at 356, 356-71;
321. STANLEY FISH, Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in Law and Literature, in DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY, supra, at 87, 87-102.
322. See FISH, Fish v. Fiss, supra note 119, at 123-26, 128.
323. See Bourdieu, supra note 55, at 833.
324. See FISH, Fish v. Fiss, supra note 119, at 123-26.
325. See FISH, I THERE A TEXT, supra note 119.
326. See td at 10-11, 13-14, 16.
327. Hans-Georg Gadamer made this point in the strongest possible terms.
328. See HANS-GEORG GADAMER, TRUTH AND METHOD 199, 397-98, 578 (Joel Weinsheimer 8c Donald G. Marshall trans., 3d rev. ed. 2004).
329. gee FISH, I THERE A TEXT, supra note 119, at 11.