BOOK: Baier et al on Social and Legal Norms

I just saw information on Pluri-Legal about a new book that might interest readers and members:

Social and Legal Norms: Towards a Socio-legal Understanding of Normativity

Edited by Matthias Baier, Lund University, Sweden

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409453444

In an era where new areas of life and new problems call for normative solutions while the plurality of values in society challenge the very basis for normative solutions, this book looks at a growing field of research on the relations between social and legal norms. New technologies and social media offer new ways to communicate about normative issues and the centrality of formal law and how normativity comes about is a question for debate. This book offers empirical and theoretical research in the field of social and legal norms and will inspire future debate and research in terms of internationalization and cross-national comparative studies. It presents a consistent picture of empirical research in different social and organizational areas and will deepen the theoretical understanding regarding the interplay between social and legal norms. 

Including chapters written from four different aspects of normativity, the contributors argue that normativity is a result of combinations between law in books, law in action, social norms and social practice. The book uses a variety of different international examples, ranging from Sweden, Uzbekistan, Colombia and Mexico.

Primarily aimed at scholars in sociology of law, socio-legal studies, law and legal theory, the book will also interest those in sociology, political science and psychology.

·  Contents: Introduction, Matthias Baier; Part I Norms and Normativity: Can legal sociology account for the normativity of law?, Reza Banakar; Norms in law and society: towards a definition of the socio-legal concept of norms, Måns Svensson; Relations between social and legal norms, Matthias Baier; Parallel norm creating processes, Karsten Åström. Part II Norms in Perspective: Norms about norms - a Hartian perspective, Karl Dahlstrand; Institutions and norms in collaboration: towards a framework for analyzing law and normativity in inter-organizational collaboration, Susanna Johansson; Conceptions, categories, and embodiment - why metaphors are of fundamental importance for understanding norms, Stefan Larsson; Spatializing social and legal norms: street vending regulation in Acapulco, Mexico, Lucas Pizzoltto Konzen. Part III Norms and Actors: Social workers linking together family norms and child protection norms, Eva Friis; Meta-norms in complex situations: the pedagogy of recognition, Lars Persson; School principals’ norms - between law and action, Ulf Leo; ‘Souls of fire’, change agents and social norms, Per Wickenberg. Part IV Norms and Structures: Legal and social norms for development: why legal reform of the informal economy failed to influence vulnerable groups in developing countries, Ana Maria Vargas Falla; Framing normality. An eye-catcher on the Swedish Labour Court, Eva Schömer; Corruption in a culture of money: understanding social norms in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, Rustamjon Urinboyev and Måns Svensson; On legal complexity: between law in books and planning in practice, Stefan Larsson; Studying norms and social change in a digital age: identifying and understanding a multidimensional gap problem, Marcin de Kaminski, Måns Svensson, Stefan Larsson, Johanna Alkan Olsson and Kari Rönkkö. Part V Socio-Legal Normativity: Towards a socio-legal understanding of normativity, Matthias Baier; Index