Comparative Legal Research and Legal Culture: Facts, Approaches, and Values

This article seeks to provide an overview of how the controversial concept of legal culture has been used so as to clarify its potential role in further developing comparative studies of law in society. It shows that the term is currently given a variety of meanings, ranging from treating it as a variable that explains the turn to law, to exploring law as culture in different settings. As a way of moving forward, attention should be given to what is assumed or asserted by given authors with respect to three key issues: the kind of facts that are thought to make up legal culture, the chosen approach within which the concept is deployed, and the normative aspects of the enquiry. It ends by revisiting Chanock's The Making of South African Legal Culture so as to show how this framework can help reveal the theoretical underpinnings and contribution of a leading case study.