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Nelken, David --- "Legal Cultures" [2012] ELECD 772; in Clark, S. David (ed), "Comparative Law and Society" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Comparative Law and Society

Editor(s): Clark, S. David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849803618

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Legal Cultures

Author(s): Nelken, David

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

15 Legal cultures
David Nelken* 1




1 INTRODUCTION

In comparative research on law and society, scholars regularly use the term `legal culture'
as a way of drawing attention to developments they seek to explain or problems that they
want to change. As a recent World Bank study reported:

Legal culture is often considered as a given feature of the local environment to which proposed
legal reform projects must adapt; many argue that legal and judicial reform programs must be
tailored to fit local legal culture or they will fail. Other times, the prevailing legal culture itself
may be the object of reform, rather than merely a constraint. Thus, understanding the argu-
ments related to the concept of legal culture will become increasingly important for aspiring
legal reformers . . .. Does the legal system not work well because people distrust the courts, or
do people distrust the courts because the legal system doesn't work well? Is the introduction of
a new contract law unlikely to have an effect because the business culture prefers informal deals
with family and friends, or does the preference for informal dealing exist only because no one has
yet passed an efficient contract law? These sorts of problems are not easy to resolve, especially
because the causality clearly runs in both directions, and the interactions between beliefs and
actions are extraordinarily complex. (2005)

On the other hand, the concept is also highly contested. Academic debates about legal
culture can be confusing because authors may disagree not only over ...