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12 Can. J.L. & Soc. 75 (1997)
A Legal Concept of Community

handle is hein.journals/cjls12 and id is 363 raw text is: A Legal Concept of Community Roger Cotterrell* Queen Mary and Westfield College University of London, UK Abstract - The concept of community has a new importance for legal theory and legal sociology. It allows an escape from traditional conceptions of the relationship between law, state and political society. It makes possible the development of a pluralistic view of law that realistically recognises powerful globalising and localising pressures shaping contemporary law. Community is best thought of initially in terms of four ideal types of collective involvement, derived from Weber's types of social action. These imply different kinds of trusting relationships and different regulator)' needs. A sense of attachment and a degree of stability in relationships is also necessary to community. Actual groups combine relationships of community in many different ways. Law's contemporary task is to express and coordinate the regulator, needs surrounding structures of community within and beyond the nation state. Risumi - Le concept de communautg a pris, dans la thorie du droit et dans celle de la sociologie du droit, une nouvelle dimension. II permet de s 'chapper des conceptions traditionnelles de la relation entre le droit, I'Etat et la communautj politique. Il rend possible la difinition d'une vision pluraliste du droit qui reconnait la rialiti des mouvements de globalisation et de regionalisation influencant le droit contemporain. Dans sa conception d'origine, la communautj repose sur quatre types d'implication collective, inspiris des formes d'action sociale proposees par Weber. Celles-ci sous- tendent qu'il existe plusieursformes de relations de confiance et donc diffirents besoins d'encadrement juridique. Pour que se forme une communaut, un sentiment d'appartenance et un certain degri de stabilitd des relations est nicessaire. Certains groupes dchafaudent leurs relations de multiples fa~ons. La tdche du droit contemporain est de formuler et de coordonner les besoins d'encadrementjuridique en vue de circonscrire la communautj au sein de l'Ftat nation et au-delb. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Institute of Sociology of Law, University of Lund, Sweden in May 1996 and at the Joint Meetings of the Law and Society Association and the ISA Research Committee on Sociology of Law, University of Strathclyde, Scotland in July 1996. 1 am grateful to Reza Banakar, HAkan Hyd6n, Karsten Astr6m, Martin Krygier and Eric Heinze, in particular, and anonymous reviewers for this journal, for helpful comments and criticisms.

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