Editorial

Abstract

How and what is researched when law is studied as a social phenomenon not only depends on the different theoretical approaches but also on variations in scientific culture. In the European and especially in the German-speaking context, the socialscientific analysis of law has traditionally held the status of a specialized sociology or-as "Rechtstatsachenforschung" (Nussbaum 1914)-that of an auxiliary discipline of legal institutions and legal studies. As such, the moderately institutionalized sociology of law has not always shown much reference to socio-philosophical theory, in which state and law, power and norms have always constituted fundamental factors for the constitution of society (Machura 2012). In the UK in turn, the social-scientific study of law is primarily carried out by the genuine interdisciplinary socio-legal studies; there, the realisation of law in the social context as well as the contribution of law for the constitution of social realities are studied in a rather pragmatic and application-oriented way. In the US, the "law and/in society" movement declared law to be a too important social fact to leave its analysis to legal scholars; hence, an extended, transdisciplinary exchange among sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, psychologists and other scholars and practitioners dealing with the interconnection of law and society has advanced (Banakar 2009).