The Sociology of Law in China: Overview and Trends

Abstract

Sociology of law in the Chinese mainland is currently enjoying a revival. Since 1979 the legalization of Chinese society has been surging forward; legal theories, however, have made slow progress. Some approaches, such as “perplexity of jurisprudence” or “the crisis of Communist legal theory,” have revealed restlessness and reflection in law circles. Therefore, when a few young research workers raised the clarion call “Make a breach in doctrinairism through sociology of law,” a chord was struck in the hearts of many people. On September 12, 1987, the first national symposium for sociology of law was held under the auspices of the Law Department of Peking University and the Politics and Law Research Group in the Institute of Reform of the Economic System in China. Over three days, the fifty-three persons present from thirty organizations throughout the country submitted twenty-five papers to the symposium, decided on the Plan for Exchange and Research in Legal Sociology (abbreviated in English as PERLS), and discussed the tasks ahead. As of January 30, 1988, the membership of PERLS had reached 186 (including forty-one policy research workers of state organs and ten lawyers), and the number of research projects concerning sociology of law totaled six, scattered all over Beijing Municipality, Shanghai Municipality, and Jilin and Jiangxi provinces. The Institute of Comparative Law and Sociology of Law, Peking University, and the Shanghai Institute of Sociology of Law were established recently. In addition, there are also some new research organizations concerned, such as the Commission of Law Studies in the Chinese Association of Behavior Science, the Institute of Sociology and the Research Group of Legal Systems Science in China University of Political Science and Law, and the Institute of Legal Psychology in Nankai University. The reestablishment of sociology of law in China is directed and supported by Professor Zhao Zhen-jiang, chair of the law department of Peking University, and Professor Shen Zong-ling, head of the Institute of Comparative Law and Sociology of Law in the same university.