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A Legal Concept of Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Roger Cotterrell
Roger Cotterrell
Affiliation:
Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, UK
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Abstract

The concept of community has a new importance for legal theory and legal sociology. It allows an escape from traditional conceptions of the relationship between law, state and political society. It makes possible the development of a pluralistic view of law that realistically recognises powerful globalising and localising pressures shaping contemporary law. Community is best thought of initially in terms of four ideal types of collective involvement, derived from Weber's types of social action. These imply different kinds of trusting relationships and different regulatory needs. A sense of attachment and a degree of stability in relationships is also necessary to community. Actual groups combine relationships of community in many different ways. Law's contemporary task is to express and coordinate the regulatory needs surrounding structures of community within and beyond the nation state.

Résumé

Le concept de communauté a pris, dans la théorie du droit et dans celle de la sociologie du droit, une nouvelle dimension. Il permet de s'échapper des conceptions traditionnelles de la relation entre le droit, l'État et la communauté politique. Il rend possible la définition d'une vision pluraliste du droit qui reconnaît la réalité des mouvements de globalisation et de régionalisation influençant le droit contemporain. Dans sa conception d'origine, la communauté repose sur quatre types d'implication collective, inspirés des formes d'action sociale proposées par Weber. Celles-ci soustendent qu'il existe plusieurs formes de relations de confiance et donc différents besoins d'encadrement juridique. Pour que se forme une communauté, un sentiment d'appartenance et un certain degré de stabilité des relations est nécessaire. Certains groupes échafaudent leurs relations de multiples façons. La tâche du droit contemporain est de formuler et de coordonner les besoins d'encadrement juridique en vue de circonscrire la communauté au sein de l'État nation et au-delà.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 12 , Issue 02: Le Pluralisme juridique/Legal Pluralism , Fall/automne 1997 , pp. 75 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1997

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47. New government policies since the election of a Labour administration in May 1997 now seek actively to promote a degree of regional self-government within the United Kingdom.