Sociology of Law

This qualitative study examines the role of clients in petty corruption by analyzing actual corrupt exchanges between ordinary citizens and low level public and private employees in post-communist Hungary. Using a grounded theory approach, interviews reveal how clients from different social strata deal with low-level agents in corrupt situations. Findings suggest two contrasting forms of low-level corruption: transactions where the client and the agent do not have a prior relationship and where external factors dominate the relationship; and cases with stronger social ties between the actors, where the client has more freedom to structure the transaction. However, a client's social background frequently determines the form of corrupt transaction and the form of resources illegally exchanged in the deal.

Demosthenes, I’ll show, has a realistic, non-ideological sense of the elemental flaws of democracy: The ambition and cunning of the few (politicians, etc.)(F1); the want of courage and smarts in the many (ordinary citizens)(F2); the general imprudence and equal fallibility of all (F3); the basic lack of human self-sufficiency (F4). Given the last two, he would find the idea of basing politics on the sufficiency of either moral virtue or expertise dangerous—blue-eyed anyway. Because the first two could be said to be inherent traits in all majorities and elites, any straightforwardly authoritarian or paternalistic scheme is ruled out in fact. Instead, the defects are to be counteracted by making sure all citizens have the best information available and by strengthening their basic capacity for critical thinking and ethical choice. Demosthenes is that rarest of creatures: An intellectual who actually believes popular rule is better than other forms of government.

"This is a first attempt to differentiate, at a theoretical level, the idea of public safety and the organization that serves to promote the police.

Both public safety and police van undergoing transformations that have to do with the way condition that security is provided: liberal state, the welfare state and the crisis of the welfare state.

Se trata de un primer intento de diferenciar, a nivel teórico, la idea de seguridad ciudadana y la organización que tiene la función de promoverla, la policía.

Tanto la seguridad pública como la policía van sufriendo transformaciones que tienen que ver con la forma de Estado en que la seguridad se provee: estado liberal, estado de bienestar y crisis del estado de bienestar."

""When is Killing a Crime, and when is it just killing?  Well, where there is no rule of law and a state, is one answer.  But there are other answers too.  For example when  whether a killing is noticed (or not), or when situations are created where violence becomes more likely.  The criminalization of killing occurs in all of these contexts. 

Of my books, this is the best one for understanding how sociology as a discipline can be used to understand a seemingly obvious question. 

In terms of methodology, this is all about historical and comparative sociology."""

"Acknowledgements / Preface / Contributors / Abbreviations
ATTILA BADÓ (Szeged) & MÁTYÁS BENCZE (Debrecen) ‘Reforming the Hungarian Lay Justice System’ 1–13 // CHONGKO CHOI (Seoul) ‘East Asian Encounter with Western Law and Emergence of Asian Jurisprudence’ 15–26 // LAJOS CS. KISS (Budapest) ‘Karl Mannheims Rezeption in Ungarn’ 27–65 // PÉTER CSERNE (Budapest) ‘How to Use Philosophy, Economics and Psychology in Jurisprudence: The Case of Paternalism in Contract Law’ 67–91 // JØRGEN DALBERG-LARSEN (Aarhus) ‘Policy of Law and Codifications’ 93–106 // PÉTER ERDŐ (Budapest) ‘Kirchenrechtliche Aspekte der Bischofssynode’ 107–121 // CARLA FARALLI (Bologna) ‘Challenges in Contemporary Legal Philosophy’ 123–130 // BALÁZS FEKETE (Budapest) ‘In the Matrix of Global Governance: Reflections on the Transformation of Statehood in the Age of Global Governance’ 131–145 // VOLKMAR GESSNER (Bremen) ‘Regulation and Support: International Business in a Global Legal Culture’ 147–159 // CHRISTOPHER BERRY GRAY (Montréal) ‘Kelsen’s Kairos: The Secessinary Moment and Its Validation’ 161–174 // TAMÁS GYŐRFI (Miskolc) ‘Jurisprudence of Reasons? The Dworkin–Schauer Debate’ 175–188 // ISTVÁN H. SZILÁGYI (Budapest) ‘Barna Horváth’s Genius’ 189–202 // ANDRÁS JAKAB (Liverpool) ‘Critical Remarks on Alexy’s Theory of Principles’ 203–219 // JÁNOS JANY (Piliscsaba) ‘Legal Pluralism in Islamic and Jewish Law during their Formative and Classical Period’ 221–242 // ANDRÁS KARÁCSONY (Budapest) ‘Legal Hermeneutics in German Jurisprudence’ 243–254 // KEZIBAN KILIÇ (Lyon) & MÁTÉ PAKSY (Budapest) ‘À la recherche du meilleur droit possible: Trois aspects de l’ontologie juridique leibnizienne’ 255–273 // PETER KOLLER (Graz) ‘Die Idee sozialer Gleichheit’ 275–287 // MIKLÓS KÖNCZÖL (Budapest) ‘Justice to Future Generations and the Problem of Uncertainty: Some Communitarian Approaches’ 289–301 // DAVID NELKEN (Macerata) ‘Legal Culture, Transnational Legal Processes and Conformity’ 303–320 // VITTORIO OLGIATI (Urbino) ‘The Preamble of the Treaty that Institutes a Constitution for Europe: A Question of Virtual Reality’ 321–337 // ESIN ÖRÜCÜ (Glasgow) ‘Some Problems and Pitfalls in Researching Law in Foreign Jurisdictions’ 339–359 // MARIJAN PAVČNIK (Ljubljana) ‘The Rule of Law Arguments: Its Elements and Some Open Questions and Cases’ 361–375 // ZOLTÁN PÉTERI (Budapest) ‘Droit et culture: Aux origines de la comparaison des cultures juridiques’ 377–392 // BÉLA POKOL (Budapest) ‘Einbeziehung der Herrschaftsdimension in die Luhmannsche Systemtheorie’ 393–413 // JIRI PRIBAN (Cardiff) ‘From the Spirit of the Laws to the Politics of Identity: A Critique of Ethno-nationalist Fantasies and their Legalisations’ 415–437 // NIKOLAS H. M. ROOS (Maastricht) ‘Theodicee: God Guilty as Charged?’ 439– 455 // JUAN IGARTUA SALAVERRÍA (Bilbao) ‘Some Cautionary Observations with Regard to the Judicial Evaluation of »Scientific Evidence«’ 457–468 // MIHÁLY SAMU (Budapest) ‘Collective Rights of Minorities and their Quality as Constituent of the State’ 469–474 // MARIE SANDSTRÖM (Stockholm) ‘The Swedish Model: Three Aspects of Legal Methodology’ 475–484 // JÓZSEF SZABADFALVI (Miskolc) ‘»Prima Philosophia Iuris«: A Sketch of Bódog Somló’s Legal Philosophical Oeuvre’ 485–498 // MIKLÓS SZABÓ (Miskolc) ‘Propositions in Law’ 499–515 // PÉTER SZILÁGYI (Budapest) ‘Zum Verhältnis der Rechtstheorie und der Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in Ungarn’ 517–526 // PÉTER TAKÁCS (Budapest) ‘Der Begriff des Gemeinwohls’ 527–537 // SZILÁRD TATTAY (Budapest) ‘»Ius« and »Dominium« in Thomas Aquinas’ /539–551 / JEAN-MARIE TRIGEAUD (Bordeaux) ‘Immutabilité et changement dans le politique et le droit’ 553–577 // ANTAL VISEGRÁDY (Pécs) ‘The Developmental Tendencies of the National Legal Systems in the European Union’ 579–587 // GORDANA VUKADINOVIĆ (Novi Sad) & ÁGNES KARTAG-ÓDRI (Novi Sad) ‘Tendencies in the Contemporary Theory of Law in Serbia’ 589–598 // JÁNOS ZLINSZKY (Budapest) ‘Römisches Recht: Beispielsammlung für Rechtsphilosophie’ 599–607 // ‘Bibliography of Csaba Varga’s Works’ 609–674"

Legalistic discourse, lawyers and lawyering had minor representation during the 2011 summer protest events in Israel. In this paper we explore and analyze this phenomena by employing content analysis on various primary and secondary sources, among them structured personal interviews with leaders and major activists involved in the protest, flyers, video recordings made by demonstrators and songs written by them. Our findings show that participants cumulatively produced a pyramid-like structure of social power that is anchored in the enterprise of organizing the protest. Our findings explicate how the non-legalistic and even anti-legalistic discourse of the protest was formed, shaped and generated within the power relations of the protest, and how a pyramid of power produced a new poetics of protest that rejected the traditional poetics of state law. The power relations that generated the discourse regarding state law were embedded in socioeconomic stratification along the divide of center and periphery in Israel.