Freedom of Speech and Society: A Social Approach to Freedom of Ex ...

the all-encompassing scope of the study of society. The question of whether law is one of the aspects of sociology or whether sociological theory should support legal analysis has been the subject of substantial scholarly attention.¹⁰ The study of the relationship between law and sociology has been termed “the sociological movement in law.”¹¹ This movement was built on two sometimes distinct and sometimes less-than-distinct concepts––sociological jurisprudence and the sociology of law. The central players in sociological jurisprudence were legal scholars such as Roscoe Pound whereas the underlying theory used in the sociology of law was furnished by the pioneering work of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. Durkheim and Weber chronologically preceded the sociological jurisprudence scholars but in terms of the evolution of the sociological movement in law, Weber and Durkheim became influential only after sociological jurisprudence came to prominence.¹²

Sociological jurisprudence is rather limited in scope because it focuses on the behaviour of the legal system, most particularly the courts, rather than the study of law itself.¹³ However, a substantial amount of social research continues to be devoted to analysing the operations of various aspects of the legal system including courts, lawyers, prison systems, and the police. For example, the prestigious journal Law & Society Review in the December 2011 edition includes articles entitled “Political Liberalism and Political Embeddedness: Understanding Politics in the Work of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers” and “Justices and Legal Clarity: Analyzing the Complexity of U.S. Supreme Court Opinions.” In these studies, the operations or efficacy of a legal system or process is analysed using the empirical analytical tools of the sociologist. Based on these studies, improvements to or greater understanding of the actual operations of the legal system can hope to be achieved.

In contrast, in the second half of the twentieth century, classical sociological concepts established by Weber and Durkheim were applied to explain law in the broadest sense. This study became known as the sociology of law.¹⁴ Marx did not play such an influential role because while