Sociology of Law and the Problem of Normative Closing The Discourse
Sociology of Law and the Problem of Normative Closing The Discourse

Summary/Abstract: Sociology of law, as well as other special sociological disciplines dealing with social institutions, is burdened by the epistemological - methodological difficulties in their studies (sociological studies of law). The difficulties are caused by the differentiation of the institutions in the terms of building self- identity and autonomy and they appear in the form of institutional resistance and discursive exclusion. All the problems can be identified as the effect of the operational closure of the institutions and production of the self-description. In the case of law we discuss the normative closure of the discourse as an expression of the institutional resistance and discursive expropriation. The focus of the work are the epistemological and methodological difficulties as a problem for the Sociology of Law, and the problem of the normative closing of the legal discourse as the cause. The manifestation of the epistemological – methodological difficulties can be seen in several instances : a) the institutional reactivity of rights as a “social problem” , b) the construction of the identity rights through the establishment of differences, c) determining the sociology of law as an external perspective on law and d) the normative closing of the legal discourse through the effects of conceptual and discursive expropriation. When asked how the sociology of law can deal with these difficulties in principle corresponds in the end of this work.

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