Conflicts of Legal Ideas and Concepts: Constructive and Destructive Aspects

Abstract

In the legal sphere, the conflict often begins with a conflict of legal ideas and concepts that can be defined as a contradiction within the legal system reflected in the opposition of one legal ideas and concepts to others. The influence of conflicts of legal ideas and concepts is particularly strong in societies that can be attributed to "ideocratic." The paper highlights the main characteristics of conflicts of legal ideas and concepts, the levels of such conflicts, their possible causes, and their constructive and destructive aspects. It is noted that some of the ideas and concepts can more or less successfully coexist, while others by their nature have to compete for the right to become dominant. As a typical example, the article discusses the conflict of legal ideas concerning the issue of which legal system should the post-Soviet countries be allocated to. The paper focuses on the competition between the following legal families in the post-Soviet space: the Romano-Germanic legal family, the Anglo-Saxon legal family, the Slavic legal family, the post-Soviet legal family, the legal family of Muslim Law, the Byzantine Legal Family, the Eurasian legal family. The author considers the competition between the legal paradigms as an example of the conflict of legal ideas and concepts at a fundamental scientific level. The paper provides the author's classification of legal paradigms into normativism and metanormativism, justifies the existance of a paradigmatic question, the answer to which determines the allocation of a certain legal idea or concept to a certain legal paradigm. In the light of the author's concept of legal paradigms and their competition, the paper elucidates the integrative concept of law. The paper provides two main ways of resolving conflicts between legal ideas and concepts, namely: either a concept that possesses the highest constructive potential may be chosen out of competing concepts or a new concept that combines the most positive features of all competing concepts may be developed. It is justified, in particular, that the concept of «progressive conservatism" or "retrofuturism" in a new way may consolidate the Russian society, reconcile the liberal and conservative vectors of its development. This ideology implies a comprehensive innovative development of the economy and modern technologies (as a "form" of social life), while maintaining a traditional, conservative approach to social and spiritual values (as an "essence" of social life).