Symbolic Dimensions of the Enforcement of Law
![handle is hein.journals/jlsocty3 and id is 210 raw text is: SYMBOLIC DIMENSIONS OF TIE
ENFORCEMENT OF LAW
A crucial question in socio-legal studies, especially for societies currently
undergoing rapid change, is how far changes can be imposed on a society by
means of changes in the legal system. More specifically, it can be asked
what bonditions enable far-reaching changes in a legal system to be imposed
effectively, what conditions lead to the rejection of such changes, and what
the possible responses by the administration are to rejection of its attempts
to impose change. Obviously, the answer must differ in detail for each
society and period, but certain common factors can be seen playing a role in
many instances; this article focuses on one which has not been examined
before in such a context-the symbolic dimension in the process of
enforcement.[]
Various writers have highlighted the importance of a symbolic
dimension in the legislative process. [2] As recently developed by Kit
Carson,[3] the argument can be summarised as follows: legislative measures
are often advocated and opposed by different groups in society not only for
their actual impact on people's behaviour-the ixstrumental effect-but
also because for historicalor other reasons they become associated with not,
obviously connected issues and so attain a symbolic dimension. In other
words, they often symbolise conflicts in the society apparently unconnected
with the exact subject matter to which they refer. This is a result of the fact
that the same action can have a multiplicity of meanings for an observer,
and within one culture these are often shared and even standardised. As
Gusfield points out: It is useful to think of symbolic acts as forms of
rhetoric, functioning to organise the perceptions, attitudes and feelings of
observers.[4] Symbolic overtones may emerge only as a result of the
arguments used in a campaign to enact* a particular measure, as where
supporters of a bill are identified with views of which society disapproves on
moral grounds. These may be so unpalatable to some of the parties involved
as to undercut instrumentally-orientated acquiesence in the measure. As
Carson suggests, instrumental objectives may be recosted when their
realisation comes to entail an inflated symbolic price, and vice versa.
I1 T.W. Arnold' The Symbols ofGovernment (1935 Yale U.P., New Haven) has a chapter on
enforcement but deals with only the last of the three questions posed above.
(21 E.g. Arnold, ibid.. J. Gusfield Symbolic Crusade (1963 Illinois U.P., Urbana).
[3] W.G. Carson, Symbolic and Instrumental Dimensions of Early Factory Legislation: A
case Study in the Social Origins of Criminal Law in Crime, Criminology and Public
Policy (ed. R. Hood, 1974, Heinemann, London) 107.
[4) Gusfield, op. cit.. p. 170.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jlsocty3&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Symbolic Dimensions of the Enforcement of Law
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