After Legal Consciousness

Posted: 18 Oct 2010

See all articles by Susan S. Silbey

Susan S. Silbey

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Date Written: December 2005

Abstract

Legal consciousness as a theoretical concept and topic of empirical research developed to address issues of legal hegemony, particularly how the law sustains its institutional power despite a persistent gap between the law on the books and the law in action. Why do people acquiesce to a legal system that, despite its promises of equal treatment, systematically reproduces inequality? Recent studies have both broadened and narrowed the concept's reach, while sacrificing much of the concept's critical edge and theoretical utility. Rather than explaining how the different experiences of law become synthesized into a set of circulating schemas and habits, the literature tracks what particular individuals think and do. Because the relationships among consciousness and processes of ideology and hegemony often go unexplained, legal consciousness as an analytic concept is domesticated within what appear to be policy projects: making specific laws work better for particular groups or interests.

Suggested Citation

Silbey, Susan S., After Legal Consciousness (December 2005). Annual Review of Law & Social Science (2005), Vol. 1, pp. 323-368, 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1693352 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.041604.115938

Susan S. Silbey (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

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