1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Privatization of the State and Legitimacy of Law : A Sociological Studies on the Transformation of Current Law
| Project/Area Number |
09620003
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Fundamental law
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| Research Institution | Nagoya University |
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Principal Investigator |
KAINO Michiatsu Nagoya University, Graduate School of Law, Professor, 大学院・法学研究科, 教授 (00013011)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 1999
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| Keywords | Publicness / Civil Society / Privatization / Welfare State / Socio-Historical Study of law / Voluntary Association / Public Sphere |
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| Research Abstract |
Current societies undergo structural changes, and to understand the transformation of the structure of Japanese society and to describe comprehensive picture of it, our analysis begins not with the law but with everyday life. Law is not simply the reflection of social relations but is actually a complex of agencies and actors and the pluralities itself must be the field of analyses. And the notion of civil society in which polity and economy are distinct does not exist in Japan and the state is still main actor in the theatre of the transformation. On the other hand, it can be maintained that legal messages reflect social conflicts, and the structure of legal systems swings cyclically between openness and closure. In this context, law seems to be undergoing a process of both destructing and restructuring in our developed societies. It is by now commonplace to note that the decentralization authority are conscious activities. However, distrust of power re-emerges in variety of particular contexts the problems tied up with the exercise of power. In this context, the solution of law is now even more not so simple. Viewed from the perspective of a sociology of law, increasing stale intervention in both welfare and economic affairs, and the consequent erosion of the liberal separation between state and civil society, gradually undermine the relative generality and the autonomy that distinguish the legal order, and what is follow this is to make it impossible to maintain an objective and justified solution. The solution of law, which seemed to contain the problem of the unjustified exercise of the power, is no longer now even seen as doing so. Where we do go from here and what are the possibilities of any alternative conception? That choices can be made objective by people participating in and controlling decisions about them.
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