Available in Russian
Author: Dmitry Poldnikov
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2018-2-68-85
Keywords: базовые посылки; закономерность; компаративистика; методология; многолинейная эволюция; сравнительная история права; функциональный метод
Recent rapid changes in the world have put all legal traditions to the test. In Europe they are boosting interest in comparative legal history and research into factors of legal development through a comparative analysis of two or more jurisdictions of the Old World. This new approach is generating vivid debates and yielding some valuable publications. Yet its methodology is far from clear. Does comparative legal history have methods of its own? Or does it borrow methods from comparative law? To resolve this complicated issue, one must look at the basic assumptions of comparative study in contemporary law and its history because they assure the compatibility of specific methods. In this article the author investigates such common basic assumptions as the complex and less coherent picture of law in the past and present (as compared to the scientific perception in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), the multilinear evolution of law, interconnectedness and legal traditions, the persistence of ubiquitous legal transplants due to cross-cultural influences, and flexible regularities of legal development. These basic assumptions allow for several methodological conclusions in comparative research. The complex vision of law and its multi-factor development necessitate a combination of various methods of research. Cross-cultural influences and the socio-cultural environment of law add value to a comparative approach in understanding apparent and hidden factors of legal development. A predominantly realistic interest of many legal historians in comprehending how law actually shaped social relations brings to the frontline of their methodology the functional method of comparative law that aims at discovering the link between social problems and their legal solutions. Finally, the compatibility of basic assumptions paves the way for several common academic goals and the object of comparative research in legal history and contemporary law. All the above justifies attempts to build on the methods of comparative law in the domain of comparative legal history.
About the author: Dmitry Poldnikov – Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Citation: Poldnikov D. (2018) Bazovye posylki sovremennykh sravnitel’nykh issledovaniy istorii prava [Basic assumptions of comparative legal history today]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 68–85. (In Russian).
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