Premises for the Economic Sociology of Law in Classical Sociological Theories

Economic sociology of law is an approach within the new economic sociology that emerged at the end of the twentieth century. Since there are well-known traditions of studying law both in sociology and in economic theory, economic sociology of law needed to justify its development as a distinct subfield. First, the sociology of law is based on essays written by Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Parsons and Foucault. During the second half of the twentieth century researchers started to conduct empirical legal studies. Legal pluralism and legal realism were the main drivers of the development for a new approach. Many papers that were published during the second half of the twentieth century demonstrated research on law and society through empirical legal studies. At the same time economic theory saw the development of law and economics. Posner (Chicago School) and Polinsky (new institutional economic theory) are the key figures in the field of law and economics. Sociological empirical legal studies do not focus primarily on economic issues and economic researchers commonly ignore social context. That is why the economic sociology of law started to develop at the end of the twentieth century. The economic sociology of law is based on essays written by Weber and Polanyi that describe the connection between law and economy. Contemporary researchers also focus on symbolical struggles between different interest groups in courts. The concept of embeddedness is very fruitful for studying the realization of market actors’ interests when economic actions are regulated by law.