Law as a Social System
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Oxford UP), Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese simplex rights (The Commercial Press), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), France (Pu Laval), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Hosei UP), Czech Republic (Stredisko); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Brazilian Portuguese rights (Martins Editora), Italy (Giappichelli), Croatia (Breza)
Law as a Social System / Das Recht der Gesellschaft
»Modern systems theory provides a new method for the analysis of society through an examination of the structures of its communications. In this volume, Niklas Luhmann, the theory's leading exponent, explores its implications for our understanding of law.
Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. He lays out the theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our understanding of...
Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. He lays out the theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our understanding of...
Read more
»Modern systems theory provides a new method for the analysis of society through an examination of the structures of its communications. In this volume, Niklas Luhmann, the theory's leading exponent, explores its implications for our understanding of law.
Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. He lays out the theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our understanding of contemporary society and in particular of the identity, performance, and function of the legal system within that society. In systems theory, society is its communications: they are its empirical reality; the items that can be observed and studied. Systems theory identifies how communications operate within a physical world and how different sub-systems of communication operate alongside each other.
In this volume, Luhmann uses systems theory to address a question central to legal theory: what differentiates law from other social practices? However, unlike conventional legal theory this volume seeks to provide an answer in terms of a general social theory: a methodology that answers the question in a manner applicable not only to law, but also to all the other complex and highly differentiated systems within modern society, such as politics, the economy, religion, the media, and education. This sociological approach offers profound insights into the relationships between law and other social systems.« (description from the English edition by Oxford UP)
Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. He lays out the theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our understanding of contemporary society and in particular of the identity, performance, and function of the legal system within that society. In systems theory, society is its communications: they are its empirical reality; the items that can be observed and studied. Systems theory identifies how communications operate within a physical world and how different sub-systems of communication operate alongside each other.
In this volume, Luhmann uses systems theory to address a question central to legal theory: what differentiates law from other social practices? However, unlike conventional legal theory this volume seeks to provide an answer in terms of a general social theory: a methodology that answers the question in a manner applicable not only to law, but also to all the other complex and highly differentiated systems within modern society, such as politics, the economy, religion, the media, and education. This sociological approach offers profound insights into the relationships between law and other social systems.« (description from the English edition by Oxford UP)
1993, 598 pages
Persons
Niklas Luhmann
Author
Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) was professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld and a major social theorist. As the most prominent German proponent of sociological systems theory, his work has become one of the key contributions to 20th-century sociology.
Niklas Luhmann
Author
Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) was professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld and a major social theorist. As the most prominent...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2024
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2024
Sociology Among Attendees
In 1966, the starting signal was given for a unique career in German-language sociology: Not only did Niklas Luhmann receive his doctorate and habilitation at the University of Münster, he also began working on presenting his programme of sociology as a science of social systems without further ado. In just four years, he sketched the foundations of his research programme for the next...
Year of Publication: 2021
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2021
The Limits of Administration
After several years of working for the ministerial administration of Lower Saxony and a stay with Talcott Parsons at Harvard, Niklas Luhmann, who had studied law, began to work at the University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer in the early 1960s. That’s where he developed the draft of a general theory of administration, designed as a new foundation for administrative science,...
Year of Publication: 2017
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2017
A Systems Theory of Society
»Theme: theory of society; duration: 30 years; costs: none« – so ran Niklas Luhman’s infamous answer at the end of the 1960s in regard to his research project. The...
Rights sold to:
Korea (Saemulgyul)
Year of Publication: 2016
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2016
The New Boss
Every organisation, as stolid as it may be, experiences a certain shock when a new manager or director is about to take over. Water cooler gossip increases, every advance in knowledge is...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Netherlands (Boom), Korea (Theorie Publishing), Turkey (VakifBank)
Year of Publication: 2013
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2013
Contingency and the Law
What can sociology contribute to modern legal theory? This was one of the central questions that continued to preoccupy Niklas Luhmann, the great sociologist who also held a law degree and...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)
Year of Publication: 2012
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2012
Power in the System
What is power? Is it something you take over from someone and hold for a certain amount of time before passing it on to someone else – like a refrigerator, a second-hand car, or a...
Rights sold to:
Spanish world rights (Herder)
Year of Publication: 2010
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2010
Political Sociology
Luhmann developed his theory of politics when he was standing in for Theodor W. Adorno in Frankfurt in the 1960s. The book at hand is the first one to offer a comprehensive account of Niklas...
Rights sold to:
Korea (Ghil); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)
Year of Publication: 2008
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2008
Love
Niklas Luhmann sees the communicative basis of what we refer to as love in the acknowledgement of foreign experience through one's own action. His classic »Love as Passion« published in 1982 focused...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), France (Diaphanes), Korea (Theorie Publishing)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish rights / Latin America (Prometeo), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), Italy (MIM), Turkey (Edebi)
Year of Publication: 2008
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2008
The Morals of Society
Morality is commonly understood to be the domain of philosophy. And therefore it could appear all the more surprising that Niklas Luhmann – one of the most influential representatives of sociology in...
Rights sold to:
Poland (selection; Academicon); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta), Japan (Keiso Shobo)
Year of Publication: 2000
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2000
A Systems Theory of Religion
The classics of sociology had regarded the sociology of religion a vital part of social theory; also, and especially, when faced with modern society, supposedly created so far removed from...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Trotta), Italy (Franco Angeli), Korea (Theorie Publishing), Czech Republic (Karolinum); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese complex rights (Business Weekly), Japan (Hosei UP)
Year of Publication: 1998
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1998
Theory of Society
Niklas Luhmann worked on an encomapssing theory of society with great consistency and care over the last three decades of his life, and this is now brought forward in Theory of Society.
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese simplex rights (The Commercial Press), France (Exils), Italy (Quodlibet), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Hosei UP), Estonia (Eksa); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Russia (Logos), Croatia (Breza)
Year of Publication: 1997
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1997
Art as a Social System
Under the title Art as a Social System, this book offers a series of publications that serve the elaboration of a theory of society. The entire undertaking – Theory of Society...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Stanford UP), Korea (Hangilsa)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), Italy (MIM), Japan (Hosei UP)
Year of Publication: 1982
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1982
Love as Passion
He argues that, while family systems remained intact in the transition from traditional to modern societies, a semantics for love developed to accommodate extra-marital relationships; this...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Chinese simplex rights (East China Normal UP), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), France (Aubier Montaigne / Flammarion), Korea (Saemulgyul), Turkey (Livera)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Peninsula), Portuguese rights (Difel), Italy (Pearson), Sweden (Liber AB), Japan (Bokutakusha), Poland (Scholar), Czech Republic (Prostor), Hungary (Joszöveg Mühely), Romania (Tact), Croatia (Naklada MD), Serbia (Zoran Stojanovic), Slovenia (Krtina)
DISCOVER
News
Niklas Luhmann: 95th Birthday on December 8, 2022
Luhmann is considered the most important German representative of sociological systems theory.Just published
Just published: Suhrkamp Authors Around the World – September 2022, issue 2
We are delighted to present to you our latest arrivals!Just published