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Legal academics in Europe publish a wide variety of materials including books, articles and essays, in an assortment of languages, and for a diverse readership. As a consequence, this variety can pose a problem for the evaluation of academic legal research. This thought-provoking book offers an overview of the legal and policy norms, methods and criteria applied in the evaluation of academic legal research, from a comparative perspective.
Making a key contribution to the contemporary debate about methods in European legal research, this comprehensive book looks behind different methodologies to explore the institutional, disciplinary, and political conflicts that shape questions of ‘method’ or ‘approach’ in European legal scholarship. Offering a new perspective on the underlying politics of method, it identifies four core dimensions of methodological struggle in legal research – the politics of questions, the politics of answers, the politics of legal audiences, and the politics of the concept of law.
Law research students often begin their PhDs without having an awareness of methodology, or the opportunity to think about the practice of research and its theoretical implications. Law Schools are, however, increasingly alive to the need to provide training in research methods to their students. They are also alive to the need to develop the research capacities of their early career scholars, not least for the Research Excellence Framework exercise. This book offers a structured approach to doing so, focusing on issues of methodology - ie, the theoretical elements of research - within the context of EU and international law. The book can be used alone, or could form the basis of a seminar-based course, or a departmental, or even regional, discussion group. At the core of the book are the materials produced for a series of workshops, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council's Collaborative Doctoral Training Fund, on Legal Research Methodologies in EU and international law. These materials consist of a document with readings on main and less mainstream methodological approaches (what we call modern and critical approaches, and the 'law and' approaches) to research in EU and international law, and a series of questions and exercises which encourage reflection on those readings, both in their own terms, and in terms of different research agendas. There are also supporting materials, giving guidance on practical matters, such as how to give a paper or be a discussant at an academic conference. The basic aim of the book is to help scholars in EU and international law reflect on their research: where does it fit within the discipline, what kinds of research questions they think interesting, how do they pursue them, what theoretical perspective best supports their way of thinking their project, and so on. The book is aimed both at PhD students and early career scholars in EU and international law, and also at more established scholars who are interested in reflecting on the development of their discipline, as well as supervising research projects.
Although American scholars sometimes consider European legal scholarship as old-fashioned and inward-looking and Europeans often perceive American legal scholarship as amateur social science, both traditions share a joint challenge. If legal scholarship becomes too much separated from practice, legal scholars will ultimately make themselves superfluous. If legal scholars, on the other hand, cannot explain to other disciplines what is academic about their research, which methodologies are typical, and what separates proper research from mediocre or poor research, they will probably end up in a similar situation. Therefore we need a debate on what unites legal academics on both sides of the Atlantic. Should legal scholarship aspire to the status of a science and gradually adopt more and more of the methods, (quality) standards, and practices of other (social) sciences? What sort of methods do we need to study law in its social context and how should legal scholarship deal with the challenges posed by globalization?
This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of current developments, issues and good practices regarding assessment in social science research. It pays particular attention to the challenges in evaluation policies in the social sciences, as well as to the specificities of publishing in the area.
This exciting textbook introduces the basic tenets and methodologies of empirical legal research. Explaining how to initiate and conduct empirical research projects, how to evaluate the methods used and how to analyze and engage with the results, Kees van den Bos provides a vibrant and reliable primer for students and practitioners looking to engage actively in legal research.
Around the globe, ex ante evaluation of legislation has become an established rationalisation of legislative processes. Legislators, politicians, and the public at large increasingly demand new laws to have a particular effect and no unwanted side effects. Various instruments are being applied that all have in common that they must predict the effect of new legislation. Until now, most publications on regulatory impact assessment praise such instruments as being extremely useful. Scepticism, however, is in order as well. Is it not as difficult to predict the future effect of a new set of rules in our complex society as it is to predict where our society as a whole is going? The search for an answer to this sceptical question is at the heart of the book. The newly established Research Group for Methodology of Law and Legal Research at Tilburg University (the Netherlands) brought together some of Europe s top specialists in the field of ex ante evaluation of legislation, with backgrounds in law, social science, political science, and law and economics. The result of their collaborative effort is a comprehensive and critical book on the pros and cons and on the opportunities, limitations, and challenges of ex ante assessment of legislation.
Until quite recently questions about methodology in legal research have been largely confined to understanding the role of doctrinal research as a scholarly discipline. In turn this has involved asking questions not only about coverage but, fundamentally, questions about the identity of the discipline. Is it (mainly) descriptive, hermeneutical, or normative? Should it also be explanatory? Legal scholarship has been torn between, on the one hand, grasping the expanding reality of law and its context, and, on the other, reducing this complex whole to manageable proportions. The purely internal analysis of a legal system, isolated from any societal context, remains an option, and is still seen in the approach of the French academy, but as law aims at ordering society and influencing human behaviour, this approach is felt by many scholars to be insufficient. Consequently many attempts have been made to conceive legal research differently. Social scientific and comparative approaches have proven fruitful. However, does the introduction of other approaches leave merely a residue of 'legal doctrine', to which pockets of social sciences can be added, or should legal doctrine be merged with the social sciences? What would such a broad interdisciplinary field look like and what would its methods be? This book is an attempt to answer some of these questions.
ïJan Smits has long been one of the most interesting and original authors on European private law theory. Now he offers his views on legal scholarship, and they are as original as they are thought-provoking. His plea for a legal scholarship that maintains its identity vis-ö-vis neighboring disciplines without collapsing into doctrinairism is bound to yield lively discussions _ and hopefully will help re-establish a proper place for legal scholarship, in Europe and beyond.Í _ Ralf Michaels, Duke University, US ïThe Mind and Method of the Legal Academic is a valuable contribution to the discussion on legal methodology and legal theory, which offers an acute insight in contemporary academic discussions. Smits provides us with fresh ideas as to the (non)importance of social sciences for law, comparative law and what makes an academic discipline. He does so in a clear style and barely hundred pages text. It therefore can be highly recommended to all students of jurisprudence.Í _ Ewoud Hondius, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands ïA wonderful little book which explains to newcomers and old hands alike what legal academics are doing, how they are doing it, how they ought to be doing it, what kind of research environment they would need, and how all this should affect their teaching. Smits brings comparative and interdisciplinary approaches home to the core of scholarly legal work.Í _ Gerhard Dannemann, Centre for British Studies, Berlin, Germany ïThis book is a wide-ranging and bold exploration of the nature of legal scholarship. Lucid and learned, Smits draws upon a variety of sources to recommend a multi-faceted approach to the normative dimension of law. As such, it provides a theoretical base for comparative law but also for any inquiry into what law or legal principle is appropriate for a given problem or situation. All those engaged in critically examining the law will benefit from its insights.Í _ Anthony Ogus, University of Manchester, UK and University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands ïAcademic debate over law and legal scholarship has placed legal research and legal education under pressure. Jan SmitsÍ book is intellectual self-defence of legal scholarship tailored for the needs of tomorrow. The Mind and Method of the Legal Academic is fluid, creative and original. Makes wonderful reading for those who are concerned about the future of legal research and legal education in a globalized world.Í _ Jaakko Husa, University of Lapland, Finland In a context of changing times and current debate, this highly topical book discusses the aims, methods and organization of legal scholarship. Jan Smits assesses the recent turn away from doctrinal research towards a more empirical and theoretical way of legal investigation and offers a fresh perspective on what it is that legal academics should deal with and how they should do it. The book also considers the consequences which follow for the organization of the legal discipline by universities and uses this context to discuss the key questions of the internationalization of law schools, quality assessments, legal education and the research culture. Being the first book to address the aim and goals of legal scholarship in an international context, this insightful study will appeal to academics, graduate students, researchers and policymakers in higher education.