The sociology of law in Italian universities

Sociology - Law - University - Italy] In the course of the last ten years, Italian universities have been experiencing a period of vigorous transition. In a context that this already renders challenging, things are made more complex for the sociology of law, in that it has had a foot in two different specific disciplinary areas ever since it was first institutionalised academically. As a result, it is running the risk of losing out in visibility and of compromising its academic identity, whose complexity is balanced by its borderline relationship with both general sociology and the legal sciences. This article aims to measure the academic space attributed to this discipline, in terms of the shape it has taken in the development of recent reforms in the Italian university system and of the stance it appears to adopt both to rules of recruitment and to the definition of its didactic approach. The article also undertakes a reconnaissance of the presence of sociologists of law in the university system, with regard to their visibility in academic disciplinary sectors and to the academic output that can be traced in the more immediately recognisable sources under the heading of the "sociology of law". The aim is not so much to provide a description of the field of sociology of law in Italy today, as to understand in what terms and subject to what restrictions the academic system considers this discipline and its scholars, so as to highlight some problems with how it is identified from outside its own ranks, as these may help draw a picture of its state of the art.

Guido Maggioni, M. Paola Mittica, La sociologia del diritto nell'Università italiana in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO " 1/2010, pp 123-171, DOI: 10.3280/SD2010-001006