The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field

Abstract

Kelsen's methodology, postulated upon limiting investigation to specifying juridical norms and upon excluding historical, psychological, or social considerations, along with any reference to the social functions that the operation of these norms may determine, entirely parallels Saussure's, which founded a pure theory of language upon the distinction between internal and external linguistics, that is, upon the exclusion of any reference to the historical, geographic, and social conditions governing the functioning of language or its transformations.12. A general review of Marxist work in sociology of law and an excellent bibliography