| "The law and social movements" in the sociology of law happened in the 20th century, and Lawrence Friedman is the important advocator for this movement. He explicitly put forward the core concept of legal culture, and has defended the concept in theoretical usefulness, while the scholars before Friedman often emphasize the relationship between law and culture. His theory of legal culture is greatly reflected in his classic work: "The Republic of choice: Law, Authority, and Culture", which had a profound impact on the later academies.This paper is based on " The Republic of choice: Law, Authority, and Culture," and focuses on the legal culture. Friedman says that the legal culture plays an act of medium between social innovation and change in the law, while the legal culture is constituted on the basis of modern individualism, so the paper analyses the theory of individual choice in free society—the core of theory of legal culture, and discusses whether "the Republic of Choice" created by individual choice can be put in practice. Also, the paper reflects the flaws of his theory.The paper is divided into six parts:In the introduction section, it gives an introduction of Friedman, his primary means of academic research, and the intention and order of the paper.The first part introduces the background of Friedman's legal theories in the aspects of theory and social reality. When the point of modernization and evolution of law have gradually lost their explanatory power, Friedman has found a new perspective for the development of sociology of law, which is to interpret the relation between the development of law and the change of society in the perspective of legal culture.The second part analyses the core conception of Friedman's theory—legal culture, including its meaning and function. Further, it interprets the relation between three conceptions: "law", "legal system", and "legal culture", which appear in Friedman's three different books respectively: "Law and Society", "Legal System" and "Republic of Choice".The third part expounds the theory of individual choice, which is the emphasis of the paper and the theory of legal culture, including the foundation of choice, the behavior of individual choice, the safeguard of choice and the effects of legal system and authorities'structure on free choice. The forth part is the reflection of Friedman's thoughts of legal culture. It can be found in his works that the United States has led the new trend of Western legal culture, while the contemporary Western legal culture has dominated the modern world, so China will embark on the same road, which is his linear concept of historic development.The conclusion section re-reviews the statement of this paper, and affirmed the Friedman's theory of legal culture and his contributions to the sociology of law. Also, it hopes that the development of constitutionality have a great progress. |
