Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI)

About the Winter School:

Law and politics are inseparably intertwined. From a rule-of-law perspective, legal norms regulate public,  and  increasingly  private,  institutionsas  well  as  legislative  and  executive  actions.  In  its function as an arbiter of the political realm, thus, law seeks to confirm or constrain politicsand the  political,  its  actors,  actions,  narratives  and  images. However,  legal  norms  not  only regulate political actions, but social and political actions are also the norms’ precondition. One also must consider, thus,(legal) norms as socially and historically engrained ininstitutional settings, at times as the formal and informal “cultures of law”. Here, the political character of law can be analysed through  a  "longue  durée"  perspective,  taking  the  historicity  of  law  and  historic  as  well  as contemporary battles over the meaning of law into account. The focus on law and politics is one that  explicitly  asks  for  questions  of  re-distribution  in  society:  who  benefits,  who  loses,  who  is harmed?

While  jurisprudence  holds  on  an  institutional  understanding  of  law  and   normativity,  allegedly focussing on “law in the books” and legal doctrine only, social sciences such as history, sociology, anthropology,  cultural  studies  and  political  sciences  have  a  broader  view  by  looking  at  the formation of law in political contexts as well as at its social function and development, sometimes lacking, however, a doctrinal understanding of positive law.

By  combining the different  academic  perspectives  on  the  implicit  and  explicit  relationship between  law  and  politics,  the  Winter  School  aims  at  shedding  light  on  respective  disciplinary blind spots, or questions not posed yet, in order to foster a dialogue on different methodological and  theoretical  approaches  of  socio-legal  research.  By  switching  perspectives  and  leaving  the comfort  zone  of  one’s  own  academic   subfield,   participants   will   learn   more   about   the interdisciplinary potential of their work within the thematic realm of law and politics and, thus, how to fill the often evoked but rarely applied concept of interdisciplinarity with live.

The WinterSchool provides a space to discuss the participants’ projects with fellow PhD students and renowned scholars of socio-legal research from different academic traditions (France, UK, Germany and the U.S.). Moreover, thematic, methodological and strategicacademic topics are covered by workshops and panel discussions on interdisciplinary workingonthe relation oflaw and politics, the methodological challenges of socio-legal researchand writing and publishing in an international context.

Organised by Centre Marc Bloch, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of Oxford University and LSI Berlin.