(Ebook) Law as a Social System by Niklas Luhmann ISBN 9780198262381, 9780199546121, 0198262388, 0199546126

(Ebook) Law as a Social System by Niklas Luhmann ISBN 9780198262381, 9780199546121, 0198262388, 0199546126

Modern systems theory provides a new method for the
analysis of society through an examination of the structures of its
communications. In this volume, Niklas Luhmann, the theory's leading exponent,
explores its implications for our understanding of law.

Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law
operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. He lays out the
theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our
understanding of contemporary society and in particular of the identity,
performance, and function of the legal system within that society. In systems
theory, society is its communications: they are its empirical reality; the
items that can be observed and studied. Systems theory identifies how
communications operate within a physical world and how different sub-systems of
communication operate alongside each other.

In this volume, Luhmann uses systems theory to address
a question central to legal theory: what differentiates law from other social
practices? However, unlike conventional legal theory this volume seeks to
provide an answer in terms of a general social theory: a methodology that
answers the question in a manner applicable not only to law, but also to all
the other complex and highly differentiated systems within modern society, such
as politics, the economy, religion, the media, and education. This sociological
approach offers profound insights into the relationships between law and other
social systems.