Abstract

This issue of “Horizons of Politics” is devoted to various aspects of the relations between broadly understood law and society. The research area of the sociology of law is the general context for these consid erations; this area is traditionally formulated within the S – P – S (society – law – society) scheme. The first part of this relation (S – P) consists of a number of social processes that directly or indirectly affect the characteristic features and the functioning of the institutions which create and implement legal norms (the social origins
of law), whereas the P – S relation is connected with the question of how various legal instruments may effectively shape the social order (the social operation of law). This clear scheme can be applied to both synchronic analyses, which try to “capture” the state of social relations at a certain moment, and diachronic analyses, which take into account the dynamics of particular elements of the system. Thus, it can be used with reference to the historical context as well as to reflections on the future of societies...