Legal institutions as comparators of legal cultures
Keywords:
comparators, comparative legal cultures, institutional theory of law, legal pluralism, comparadores (indicadores), culturas jurídicas comparadas, teoría institucional del derecho, pluralismo jurídicoAbstract
The institutional theory of law provides the conceptual foundations both for a sociologically sound and theoretically coherent socio-legal theory of law and for comparative research into legal cultures. By conceiving law as institutional normative order the institutional theory can accommodate for the rich historical and cultural diversity in the forms of law. This article analyses the three components of the institutional theory, i.e. norms, order and institutions, and gives a brief account of the types of norms that institutions bring together, their sociological dimension and the typologies of legal institutions. The notion of order is enhanced by the institutional theory to account both for claims to practical operation of the law and for the existence of conflicts, calling for institutional approaches to dispute resolution. This opening to “order and dispute” raises the question of justice and fairness of the norms and of the mechanisms of dispute resolution. Comparison of legal cultures needs to identify the legal fields that are being compared, with a view to producing a workable set of legal culture comparators for comparative purposes. These comparators would need further spelling out to deliver measurable indicators.
La teoría institucional del derecho proporciona los fundamentos conceptuales tanto para una teoría del derecho sociológicamente sólida y teóricamente coherente como para la investigación comparativa de las culturas jurídicas. Al concebir el derecho como un orden normativo institucional, la teoría institucional puede adaptarse a la rica diversidad histórica y cultural de las formas del derecho. Este artículo analiza los tres componentes de la teoría institucional, es decir, las normas, el orden y las instituciones, y da una breve reseña de los tipos de normas que agrupan las instituciones, su dimensión sociológica y las tipologías de las instituciones jurídicas. La noción de orden se ve reforzada por la teoría institucional para atender la operación práctica del derecho y para explicar la existencia de conflictos, lo que exige enfoques institucionales para su resolución. Esta apertura al “orden y conflicto” plantea la cuestión de la justicia y equidad de las normas y de los mecanismos de resolución de conflictos. La comparación de culturas jurídicas necesita identificar los campos jurídicos que se están comparando, con miras a producir un conjunto viable de comparadores de cultura jurídica con fines comparativos. Estos comparadores deberán desarrollarse para ofrecer indicadores medibles.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1361
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