10.12759/HSR.40.2015.1.7-22
Diaz-Bone, Rainer
Rainer
Diaz-Bone
Didry, Claude
Claude
Didry
Salais, Robert
Robert
Salais
Conventionalist’s Perspectives on the Political Economy of Law. An Introduction
Konventionentheoretische Perspektiven auf die politische Ökonomie des Rechts. Eine Einleitung
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
2015
Economics of convention
institutions
law
economic action
neoliberalism
economic neo-institutionalism
new historical institutionalism
conventions of State
sociology of law
2015
en
urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-419625
http://www.gesis.org/en/hsr/archive/2015/401-law-and-conventions/
0172-6404
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=12&sid=88cec5af-0ce4-4b69-a387-8a2c56fae96c%40sessionmgr4001&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=sih&AN=100652535
1.0
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Historical Social Research, 40(1), 7-22
This introduction and the contributions of this HSR Special Issue “Conventions and Law from a Historical Perspective” present the conception and analysis of law from the perspective of the French institutionalist approach of the economics of convention (EC). From the pragmatic viewpoint of EC, law is regarded as an institution through which actors “identify” the situation in which they interact regularly. Law can be seen as a “guide” in the coordinations in which actors are engaged and committed. So law is not conceived as simple external constraint for economic action because law has to be interpreted and mobilized by competent actors. Therefore, EC understands law as internal to situational coordinations. From its beginnings (three decades ago), EC has includ-ed the analysis of law into its institutional research. Also from its beginnings, EC has developed a transdisciplinary approach, refusing the traditional “division of law” between history, sociology, economics, and law science. The introduction presents some main concepts (as convention of State) and positions of EC in the analysis of law. This introduction also relates EC’s perspective to neoliberalism, economic neo-institutionalism, new historical institutionalism, and the Weberian sociology of law. The contributions of this HSR Special Issue are presented. They cover overviews about EC’s research on (mainly economic) law, empirical applications, and theoretical considerations about law from a conventionalist perspective.
Historical Social Research Vol. 40, No. 1 (2015)