The basic training required for all new graduate students is provided by the Theory and Methods in Socio-Legal Research course, which is compulsory for all Centre students in the first year of their research degrees.

Law is not only a means for giving certainty and stability to private relationships and maintaining social order, but also an instrument for directing society and solving social issues. The operation of law in society raises important issues of both a theoretical and an empirical nature: how does law actually function in society and how can this be understood? The first part of the course introduces these issues and considers the social foundations of law. The second part extends the scope to the study of law in non-western environments and issues considered by anthropologists of law.

Scholarship concerning law and society takes two directions. The more theoretical asks questions about law as a social formation, how law fits into society, what function it has, and how it interrelates with other aspects of society. Empirical approaches ask how law works in practical situations by conducting in-depth research into specific areas. These include regulation, businesses practices and the use of official discretion and considers matters such as the relationship between law and social rules, how courts work in practiceand how administrative and regulatory bodies apply the law. These studies are the basis for observing more general patterns concerning the ways law works in society. The first part of the course brings together these two directions, showing how theoretical ideas inform empirical research and visa versa.

The second part asks how we are to understand the different systems of law found in other societies. On what grounds can we even define them as law? These questions are central for anthropologists of law but arise, in practical ways, for those concerned with the implementation of international law and development projects and the promotion of good governance and democracy around the world. How do our laws and legal practices conflict with, complement or undermine their practices and expectations? These issues are considered in the context of classic sociological theories and anthropological approaches to the study of diverse forms of law. Asking about the other also causes us to reflect on the parameters and cultural specificity of our own concepts of law and students will be encouraged to think constructively and critically about familiar legal phenomena and their universal application.

The basic training required for all new graduate students is provided by the Theory and Methods in Socio-Legal Research course, which is compulsory for all Centre students in the first year of their research degrees.

Law is not only a means for giving certainty and stability to private relationships and maintaining social order, but also an instrument for directing society and solving social issues. The operation of law in society raises important issues of both a theoretical and an empirical nature: how does law actually function in society and how can this be understood? The first part of the course introduces these issues and considers the social foundations of law. The second part extends the scope to the study of law in non-western environments and issues considered by anthropologists of law.

Scholarship concerning law and society takes two directions. The more theoretical asks questions about law as a social formation, how law fits into society, what function it has, and how it interrelates with other aspects of society. Empirical approaches ask how law works in practical situations by conducting in-depth research into specific areas. These include regulation, businesses practices and the use of official discretion and considers matters such as the relationship between law and social rules, how courts work in practiceand how administrative and regulatory bodies apply the law. These studies are the basis for observing more general patterns concerning the ways law works in society. The first part of the course brings together these two directions, showing how theoretical ideas inform empirical research and visa versa.

The second part asks how we are to understand the different systems of law found in other societies. On what grounds can we even define them as law? These questions are central for anthropologists of law but arise, in practical ways, for those concerned with the implementation of international law and development projects and the promotion of good governance and democracy around the world. How do our laws and legal practices conflict with, complement or undermine their practices and expectations? These issues are considered in the context of classic sociological theories and anthropological approaches to the study of diverse forms of law. Asking about the other also causes us to reflect on the parameters and cultural specificity of our own concepts of law and students will be encouraged to think constructively and critically about familiar legal phenomena and their universal application.

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.