Why methods matter in European legal scholarship

Both in the United States and in Europe, there is a debate on methodology in legal research. Doctrinalists and multidisciplinarians appear to be in different camps fighting over the ‘true nature’ of legal scholarship. We wonder where this renewed attention for methodology is coming from and what is behind it. Should European legal scholars follow certain colleagues in the United States who believe that doctrinal research is dead and should we all engage in law and … research now? If not, does this imply that there is nothing wrong with mainstream European doctrinal legal scholarship? We believe the latter is not the case. Our hypothesis is that an ongoing instrumentalisation of law and legal research decreases the attention for methodology, for theory building, and for keeping enough professional distance to one's object of research. This threatens to result in a creeping process of herd behaviour, in copy pasting the methodology of judicial lawmaking to legal scholarship and in a lack of transparency and methodological justification in scholarly legal publications. What is desperately needed is more reflection on methodology and theory building in European legal scholarship

Why Methods Matter in European Legal Scholarship

Both in the United States and in Europe, there is a debate on methodology in legal research. Doctrinalists and multidisciplinarians appear to be in different camps fighting over the true nature' of legal scholarship. We wonder where this renewed attention for methodology is coming from and what is behind it. Should European legal scholars follow certain colleagues in the United States who believe that doctrinal research is dead and should we all engage in law and ... research now? If not, does this imply that there is nothing wrong with mainstream European doctrinal legal scholarship? We believe the latter is not the case. Our hypothesis is that an ongoing instrumentalisation of law and legal research decreases the attention for methodology, for theory building, and for keeping enough professional distance to one's object of research. This threatens to result in a creeping process of herd behaviour, in copy pasting the methodology of judicial lawmaking to legal scholarship and in a lack of transparency and methodological justification in scholarly legal publications. What is desperately needed is more reflection on methodology and theory building in European legal scholarship

Revitalizing Doctrinal Legal Research in Europe: What About Methodology?

Both in the U.S. and in Europe there is a debate on methodology in legal research. Doctrinalists and multidisciplinarians appear to be in different camps fighting over the ‘true nature’ of legal scholarship. We wonder where this renewed attention for methodology is coming from and what is behind it. Should European legal scholars follow certain colleagues in the U.S. who believe that doctrinal research is dead and should we all engage in law and… research now? If not, does this imply that there is nothing wrong with mainstream European doctrinal legal scholarship? We believe the latter is not the case. Our hypothesis is that an increased instrumentalisation of European law, and legal research has decreased the attention for methodology, for legal theory, and for keeping enough professional distance to ones object of research. This has, among others, resulted in a lack of scholarly criticism towards European integration. We will argue that the answer to this problem is not to try to put doctrinal legal research out with the garbage. Instead, we suggest it should be revitalized so that it is up for the challenges that European law is facing

Methodology in the New Legal World

Law is a discipline in transition moving, among others, from a predominantly monodisciplinary dogmatic tradition towards more and more attention for multidisciplinary and empirical legal research, from a national to a more international and global orientation and from a research culture of ‘laissez faire’ towards more managerial control, rankings and research programming. Questions lying in wait are, among others: how can we revitalise doctrinal legal research in Europe in a way that it is up for the challenges of the future, such as the blurring of borders between European and national law, public and private law and state and non-state law and what does the multidisciplinary turn in legal research mean for the education of law students and starting researchers? Moreover, how should legal scholars react to the increased instrumentalisation of law in order to avoid that legal research is reduced to a policy tool that is meant to ‘solve’ the major societal problems of today? We believe that what is required is not only more focus on methodology with a small ‘m’ concentrating on how to train new generations of academics to conduct different sorts of legal research. Just as much needed is more attention in research and education for the importance of methodology with a big ‘M’ aiming for (self- )criticism, awareness of the risk of advocacy scholarship and herd behaviour and concentrating on slow science: theory-building with the intention to explain why law in a globalised world develops as it does

Contract and Regulation

Contract and Regulation: A Handbook on New Methods of Law Making in Private Law sheds light on the darker side of contracts. It begins by exploring the 'regulatory space' in which projects are planned, deals are done, and goods and services are consumed, then shows how a 'bottom-up' approach can be adopted in order to view this transactional space through the eyes of contractors. The expert contributors explore modes of governance that do not fit nicely into traditional contract theory, paying special attention to three key examples: governance and codes of conduction, networks and relations, compliance and use.</p