This book, which is dedicated to the memory of distinguished scholar Professor Simon Roberts, is a collection of essays exploring themes and issues in the relationship between comparative legal studies and other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Law does not exist in a vacuum, and an appreciation of the social, cultural and other factors affecting it may often be helpful for a sounder understanding of its nature and significance, especially when law is considered in a broader, comparative, context. Insights drawn from other disciplines may therefore be especially appropriate for comparative legal studies, but the use of those insights raises various questions, such as the manner in which other disciplines--given their own distinctive concerns and modes of analysis--characterise the nature and significance of law and legal institutions. Interdisciplinary study also encourages us to ask how cognate disciplines and their arguments are seen, used and maltreated in comparative legal studies, as well as the pitfalls which await scholars from other disciplines who venture into law. The essays in this collection offer a unique contribution to these and other aspects of the use of interdisciplinarity in comparative law. The contributors cover a broad range of disciplines and topics. Nicholas Foster, Maria Federica Moscati and Michael Palmer offer some general observations; Eric Heinze examines basic theoretical problems of comparative law by analogy to a comparative literary model; Jaakko Husa considers the nature and problems of 'Interdisciplinary Comparative Law'; Dionysia Katelouzou explores the value of quantitative methods drawn from the fields of economics and finance; Karen McAuliffe examines issues of law, language and translation; Fernanda Pirie considers the significance of historical studies for anthropological understandings of non-state law; Marian Roberts examines the influences of interdisciplinarity on the development and practice of UK family mediation; Mathias Siems speaks to the use in comparative legal studies of insights drawn from other comparative disciplines; Florian Wagner-von Papp explores issues in the relationship between comparative law and economics, while Gary Watt contrasts economics-based interdisciplinarity to the humanities approach; Simon Roberts draws on anthropological approaches to negotiation for understanding civil justice issues; and Sir Ross Cranston reflects on the value of an important area of Simon Roberts' interdisciplinary work.

Influential writers on international law and international relations explore the making, interpretation and enforcement of international law.

Comparative law scholars have long recognised the importance of looking beyond legal texts and incorporating interdisciplinary methods into the study of law, yet in practice such use of non-legal methods has remained modest. Interdisciplinary Comparative Law illuminates why the doctrinal approach to legal research has retained its strong position, offering a critical analysis of the difficulties of interdisciplinarity. Incisive and ambitious in scope, the book highlights why the comparative study of law benefits from employing the methods of other disciplines. Chapters explore the various ways in which different fields can learn from each other, taking a deep dive into the respective studies of legal history, linguistics, literature, economics, social theory, and international law. The result is a vibrant cross-section of the contrasts and parallels between the practices of law and other areas of research, demonstrating which are the easiest for comparatists to grasp and implement, and which present obstacles for the application of non-legal methods. This cutting-edge book is an essential read for advanced students and scholars of law and legal studies. Its diagnosis of interdisciplinarity as both a boon and bane in the study of law will be of especial interest to comparative law scholars.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This insightful and timely book introduces an explanatory theory for surveying global and international politics. Describing the nature and effects of democracy beyond the state, Hans Agné explores peace and conflict, migration politics, resource distribution, regime effectiveness, foreign policy and posthuman politics through the lens of democratism to both supplement and challenge established research paradigms.

The most up-to-date and contextualised offering for comparative law students and scholars, referencing the newest research in the field.

This cutting-edge book facilitates debate amongst scholars in law, humanities and social sciences, where comparative methodology is far less well anchored in most areas compared to other research methods. It posits that these are disciplines in which comparative research is not simply a bonus, but is of the essence.

Examining various social science phenomena and comparative studies fields allows for a holistic approach to understanding rather than trying to achieve understanding as a conglomeration of isolated phenomena.

This article studies the significance of insights from nonlegal disciplines (such as political science, economics, and sociology) for comparative legal research and the methodology connected with such 'interdisciplinary contextualization'. Based on a theoretical analysis concerning the nature and methodology of comparative law, the article demonstrates that contextualization of the analysis of legal rules and case law is required for a meaningful comparison between legal systems. The challenges relating to this contextualization are illustrated on the basis of a study of the judicial use of comparative legal analysis as a source of inspiration in the judgment of difficult cases. The insights obtained from the theoretical analysis and the example are combined in a final analysis concerning the role and method of interdisciplinary contextualization in comparative legal analysis conducted by legal scholars and legal practitioners.

Law and Economics is an established field of research and arguably one of the few examples of a successful interdisciplinary project. This book explores whether, or to what extent, that interdisciplinarity has indeed been a success. It provides insights on the foundations and methods, achievements and challenges of Law and Economics, at a time when both the continuing criticism of academic economics and the growth of empirical legal studies raise questions about the identity and possible further developments of the project. Through a combination of reflections on long-term trends and detailed case studies, contributors to this volume analyse the institutional and epistemic character of Law and Economics, which develops through an exchange of concepts, models and practices between economics and legal scholarship. Inspired by insights from the philosophy of the social sciences, the book shows how concepts travel between legal scholarship and economics and change meanings when applied elsewhere, how economic theories and models inform, and transform, judicial practice, and it addresses whether the transfers of knowledge between economics and law are symmetrical exchanges between the two disciplines.