Duncan Kennedy

Sociology of Law

1. Introduction
2. Essays on the Sociology of Law

Introduction

The sociology of law has different meanings in different places and traditions. In this list of essays, I tried to include everything I have written about the social, economic, political, psychological and “ideal” (or normative) factors that influence the content of positive law in modern systems (a very Kelsenian definition). Because the list is so long, here are some pointers. The essays fall into five categories.

First, I’ve attempted comprehensive sociological treatments of several aspects of law. In Chapters 3, 9, 10 and 11 of A Critique of Adjudication, I present a fairly complete sociology of law with the goal of placing the institution of adjudication in the sociological context of modern Unitedstatesean electoral politics. In Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, I tried to give a comprehensive sociological account of how the institution of legal education operates as a reflection and also as a cause of hierarchy in the bar and in society in general. In “Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing and the Eroticization of Domination,” the goal was to analyze the legal regulation of sexuality using a combination of the economic analysis of law and critical theory (including the varieties of feminist legal theory).

Second, in a number of essays, I’ve tried to add, to the standard categories of sociological analysis of law, the two elements of a focus on the background rules of private law that condition all aspects of life in modern societies, and the semiotic analysis of legal discourse. The best summaries of these positions are in “The Stakes of Law, or Hale and Foucault!” and “A Semiotics of Legal Argument” (in the extended version, with a “European Introduction”). The semiotic approach from a number of different articles is synthesized, I hope, in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of A Critique of Adjudication, with, in Chapter 8, an attempt to integrate the sociological element with the psychological approaches of Sartre and Freud. To my mind, the most philosophically sophisticated version of the position that I have managed to produce is “Freedom and Constraint in Adjudication: A Critical Phenomenology.” If you are interested in this aspect, you might want to consult the “Legal Theory” topic page.

Third, I’ve attempted to contrast the above approach to the sociology of law to the approaches of Marx (“The Role of Law in Economic Thought: Essays on the Fetishism of Commodities”), Weber (“The Disenchantment of Logically Formal Legal Rationality, or Max Weber’s Sociology in the Genealogy of the Contemporary Mode of Western Legal Thought”) and Foucault (“The Stakes of Law, or Hale and Foucault!” already mentioned).

Fourth, I’ve included in the list various essays that critique today’s mainstream law and economics literature, and that attempt to develop an alternative approach that puts the central emphasis on the distributive consequences of legal rules, and particularly on the consequences for “weak parties.” In these essays, I’ve tried to deploy a more complex, though perfectly conventional, variety of economic ideas, including, for example, the idea of unstable equilibrium in low income housing markets, to destabilize some of the conservative biases of the mainstream. If this is your primary interest, I suggest referring to the “Law and Economics” topic page.

Fifth, I’ve been developing a general theory of the globalization of law and legal thought in the period since 1850. One part of this is the mapping of the spread of different European legal ideas across the world (“Two Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought: 1850-1968”). Another part is an attempt to radically revise the standard treatment of twentieth century legal thought by foregrounding what I call “the social,” and treating legal realism as a critique of “the social,” presaging the contemporary mode of “conflicting considerations” legal consciousness (“From the Will Theory to the Principle of Private Autonomy: Lon Fuller’s Consideration and Form,” “François Gény aux États Unis” with Marie-Claire Belleau, “The Disenchantment of Logically Formal Legal Rationality, or Max Weber’s Sociology in the Genealogy of the Contemporary Mode of Western Legal Thought,” and “Legal Formalism”). Readers interested in this topic might want to consult the Legal History topic as well.

Essays on the Sociology of Law

• A Social Psychological Interpretation of the Hermeneutic of Suspicion in Contemporary American Legal Thought, in Justin Desautels-Stein and Christopher Tomlins, Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
• A Left of Liberal Interpretation of Trump’s “Big” Win, Part One: Neoliberalism, 1 Nev. L.J. Forum 98 (2017)
• Property as Fetish and Tool, Duncan Kennedy on Property, the Commons, and the Law, Grassroots Economic Organizing, May 17, 2017
• Teaching Israel/Palestine Legal Issues at Harvard: Interview with Duncan Kennedy, by Whosam El-Coolaq, 10 Unbound 36 (2015)
• The Globalisation of Critical Discourses on Law: Thoughts on David Trubek’s Contribution, in Grainne de Burca, Claire Kilpatrick and Joanne Scott, eds., Critical Legal Perspectives on Global Governance: Liber Amicorum David M. Trubek (Hart Publishing, 2014)
• The Hermeneutic of Suspicion in Contemporary American Legal Thought, 25 Law and Critique 91 (2014)
• Political Ideology and Comparative Law, in Mauro Bussani and Ugo Mattei, The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law (Cambridge University Press 2012)
• African Poverty, 87 Wash. L. Rev. 205 (2012)
• Éloge de Duncan Kennedy, par Christophe Jamin, et Réponse de Duncan Kennedy, in Remise d’un doctorat honoris causa à Duncan Kennedy, Petites Affiches, La Loi, Le Quotidien Juridique (Lextenso éditions, 27 décembre 2011)
• Savigny’s Family/Patrimony Distinction and its Place in the Global Genealogy of Classical Legal Thought, 58 Am. J. Comp. L. 811 (2010)
• Interview with Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School, Cambridge MA (USA), May 2008 (by Mauro Zamboni), 32 REFTÆRD Årgång, no. 2/125 (2009)
• Entretien avec Duncan Kennedy, par Mikhail Xifaras, as the introduction to Sexy Dressing, Violences sexuelles et érotisation de la domination (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), the French translation of the article Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing and the Eroticization of Domination, 26 New England L. Rev. 1309 (1992)
• Teaching from the Left in My Anecdotage, 31 NYU Review of Law and Social Change 449 (2007)
• Thirty Years Later, a preface to the published manuscript The Rise & Fall of Classical Legal Thought (Beard Books, Washington DC, 2006)
• Introduction and Afterword to the republication of Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, A Polemic Against the System, A Critical Edition (NYU Press, Critical America, 2004)
• Introduction to Symposium on Dismantling Hierarches in Legal Education, 73 UMKC L. Rev. 231 (2004)
• Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System (AFAR 1983) [also published in updated book version as Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System, A Critical Edition, with contributions from Paul Harrington, Peter Gabel [weblink], Angela Harris, Donna Maeda and Janet Halley, and with a new introduction and afterword by the author (NYU Press, Critical America 2004)]
• The Disenchantment of Logically Formal Legal Rationality, or Max Weber’s Sociology in the Genealogy of the Contemporary Mode of Western Legal Thought, 55 Hastings L. J. 1031 (2004)
• Three Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought: 1850-2000, in The New Law and Economic Development. A Critical Appraisal, David Trubek and Alvaro Santos, eds., (Cambridge, 2006)
  • Earlier version: Two Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought: 1850-1968, 36 Suffolk Univ. L. Rev. 631 (2003)
• The Critique of Rights in Critical Legal Studies, in Brown and Halley, eds., Left Legalism/Left Critique (Duke University Press 2002)
• Legal Economics of U.S. Low Income Housing Markets in Light of “Informality” Analysis, 4 J. Law in Society 71 (2002)
• Legal Formalism, The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences 8634 (2001)
• The Political Stakes in “Merely Technical” Issues of Contract Law, 1 European Review of Private Law 7 (2001)
  • Italian translation: La Funzione Ideologica del Tecnicismo nel Diritto dei Contratti, 20 Rivista Critica del Diritto Privato 317 (2002)
• François Gény aux États-Unis, in Francois Gény, Mythe et Realités 1899-1999 Centenaire de Methode d’Interpretation et Sources en Droit Privé Positif, Essai Critique (Claude Thomasset, Jacques Vanderlinden & Philippe Jestaz, eds., Editions Yvon Blais, Montreal, 2000), with Marie Claire Belleau
• From the Will Theory to the Principle of Private Autonomy: Ion Fuller’s Consideration and Form, 100 Colum. L. Rev. 94 (2000)
• Law and Economics from the Perspective of Critical Legal Studies, 2 The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law 465 (P. Newman, ed., Macmillan, New York, 1998)
• A Critique of Adjudication [fin de siècle] (Harvard University Press, 1997)
  • Chapter four was reprinted as: The Paradox of American Critical Legalism, 3 European Law J. 359 (1997)
  • Chapter eight was reprinted as: Strategizing Strategic Behavior in Legal Interpretation, 1996 Utah L. Rev. 785
  • Italian translation of chapter two: La Distinzione tra Giudice e Legislatore, 15 Rivista Critica di Diritto Privato 383 (1997)
  • Of chapter four with a brief foreword: Il Pensiero Giuridico Post-testualista: il Caso degli Stati Uniti, 2 Ars Interpretandi: Annuario di Ermeneutica Giuridica 197 (1997)
  • Of chapter eight: Comportamenti Strategici nell’interpretazione del Diritto, in J. Derrida & G. Vattimo, eds., Diritto, giustizia e interpretazione (Laterza, Rome, 1998)
  • German translation of parts of chapters nine & ten: Konsequenzen der Richterlichen Entscheidung, in G. Teubner, ed., Entscheidungsfolgen als Rechtsgrunde (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, 1995)
  • A condensed version of chapters 12 and 13 appeared as: The Critique of Rights in Critical Legal Studies, in Brown and Halley, eds., Left Legalism/Left Critique (Duke University Press 2002)
• American Constitutionalism as Civil Religion: Notes of an Atheist, 19 Nova L. Rev. 909 (1995)
• Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives as a Mode of Privatization, in G. Alexander & G. Skapska, eds., A Fourth Way? Privatization, Property, and the Emergence of New Market Economies (Routledge, 1994), with Leopold Specht
• Neither the Market nor the State: Housing Privatization Issues, in G. Alexander & G. Skapska, eds., A Fourth Way? Privatization, Property, and the Emergence of New Market Economies (Routledge, 1994)
• Sexy Dressing, etc. (Harvard University Press, 1993)
  • Greek translation: Ντάνκαν Κέννεντυ, Σέξυ ντύσιμο και άλλα, Δοκίμια για την εξουσία και την πολιτική της πολιτιστικής ταυτότητας, (Εκδόσεις ΔΡΟΜΕΑΣ, Αθήνα 2000)
• Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing and the Eroticization of Domination, 26 New England L. Rev. 1309 (1992) [also in Sexy Dressing, Etc.]
  • Avant-propos and interview preceding translation of this article as a book under the title Sexy Dressing, Violences sexuelles et érotisation de la domination (Paris: Flammarion, 2008)
• The Stakes of Law, or Hale and Foucault!, 15 Legal Studies Forum 327 (1991) [also in Sexy Dressing, Etc.]
• A Cultural Pluralist Case for Affirmative Action in Legal Academia, 1990 Duke L.J. 706 [also in Sexy Dressing, Etc.]
• The Liberal Administrative Style, 41 Syracuse L. Rev. 801 (1990)
• Radical Intellectuals in American Culture and Politics, or My Talk at the Gramsci Institute, in Rethinking Marxism, Vol. 1, no. 3 (Fall 1988) [also in Sexy Dressing, Etc.]
  • Italian translation of shorter version: Giuristi Radicali, Intelletuali e Stato nella Cultura Americana ovvero il mio Discorso per l’istituto Gramsci, 7 Rivista Critica del Diritto Privato 29 (Naples, 1989)
• Are Lawyers Really Necessary, magazine interview, 14 Barrister, no. 4, p. 10 (Fall 1987)
  • Partial Spanish translation: ¿Son los abogados realmente necesarios?, Axel O. Eljatib, trans., in Desde Otra Mirada: Textos de Teoría Crítica del Derecho (Eudeba 2001)
• Freedom & Constraint in Adjudication: A Critical Phenomenology, 36 J. Leg. Ed. 518 (1986)
  • Shorter version: Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Judging, in A. Hutchinson P. Monahan, eds., The Rule of Law: Ideal or Ideology? (Carswell 1987)
  • Freedom & Constraint in Adjudication: A Critical Phenomenology, reprinted in J. Boyle, ed., Critical Legal Studies (Dartmouth 1992)
  • Spanish translation: Libertad y Restricción en la Decisión Judicial. El debate con la Teoría Crítica del Derecho (CLS), Diego Eduardo López, trans., Siglo del Hombre Editores, Bogotá, Colombia, 1999; con un Estudio Preliminar de César Rodríguez
• Psycho-social CLS: A Comment on the Cardozo Symposium, Cardozo L. Rev. 1013 (1985)
• The Role of Law in Economic Thought: Essays on the Fetishism of Commodities, 34 Amer. Univ. L. Rev. 939 (1985)
• Roll Over Beethoven, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 1 (1984) (with Peter Gabel)
• Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System (AFAR 1983)
  • Shorter version: Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, 32 J. Leg. Ed. 591 (1982)
  • Shorter version: Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy, in D. Kairys, ed. The Politics of Law (1982, 2nd ed. 1990, 3d ed. 1998)
  • French translation: L’enseignement du Droit et la Reproduction des Hierarchies Professionelles, Annales de Vaucresson, deuxième semestre 1985, no. 23, p. 191
  • Spanish translation: La educación legal como preparación para la jerarquía, María Luisa Piqué y Christian Courtis, trans., in Desde Otra Mirada: Textos de Teoría Crítica del Derecho (Eudeba 2001); also published as La educación legal como preparación para la jerarquía, Academia, Revista sobre Enseñanza del Derecho de Buenos Aires, Año 2, no. 3, Otoño 2004 [translation of Legal Education as a Training for Hierarchy, in D. Kairys, ed., The Politics of Law (New York, Pantheon, 1990)]
• The Political Significance of the Structure of the Law School Curriculum, 14 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1 (1983)
• Antonio Gramsci and the Legal System, 6 ALSA Forum, No. 1, p. 32 (1982)
• Distributive and Paternalist Motives in Contract and Tort Law, with Special Reference to Compulsory Terms and Unequal Bargaining Power, 41 Maryland L. Rev. 563 (1982)
• The Stages of the Decline of the Public/Private Distinction, 130 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1349 (1982)
• Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy, in D. Kairys, ed. The Politics of Law (1982, 2nd ed. 1990, 3d ed. 1998)
• Cost-Reduction Theory as Legitimation, 90 Yale L. J. 1275 (1981)
• Critical Labor Law Theory: A Comment, 4 Industrial Relations L.J. 503 (1981)
• Are Property and Contract Efficient? 8 Hofstra L. Rev. 711 (1980), with Frank Michelman
• Toward an Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness: The Case of Classical Legal Thought in America, 1850-1940, 3 Research in Law & Soc., Spitzer, Ed. (1980)
• Form & Substance in Private Law Adjudication, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1685 (1976)
  • Partially reprinted in Critical Legal Studies (A. Hutchinson, ed., Rowman & Littlefield, Toronto, 1989)
  • Italian translation: Forma e Sostanza nella Giurisdizione di Diritto Privato (A. Carrino, trans., Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Naples, 1992)
  • Partial Spanish translation: Forma y Sustancia en la Adjudicación de Derecho Privado, in Sociología Jurídica, Teoría y Sociología del Derecho en Estados Unidos (M. Villegas, ed., Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, Bogotá, 2001)