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Chantal
Kourilsky-Augeven
Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, France
Andras Sajo
Central European
University, Budapest
Maria Borucka-Arctowa
Institute of
Political Science, Cracow
Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka
Institute of Applied Social Sciences,
Warsaw
1. "Legal consciousness, social anxiety and cultural models: Europe vs. the USA" by Chantal Kourilsky-Augeven
2. "Imaginary Westernization of legal representations: Lessons from a comparative survey" by Andras Sajo
3. "Attitudes toward civil and social rights in old and new democracies" by Maria Borucka-Arctowa
4. "Expectations regarding law and the emerging concept of legality in the process of democratic transformation" by Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka.
These texts present the interpretations by four European researchers of the data collected in a survey carried out in 1995-1996 in seven countries (Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Spain and the United States) in the framework of an international project funded by the National Science Foundation [SES 92 13237 & SBR 93 11403].
The idea for a joint comparative project was launched in 1991 at the first international meeting on research about legal socialization organized by Chantal Kourilsky-Augeven at the CNRS in Paris. Taken up by the Working Group on Orientations toward Law and Normative Ordering created by Chantal Kourilsky-Augeven and Felice Levine in the framework of the Law and Society Association, this idea was developed during subsequent sessions of this group, (a housted of the University of New Hampshire in Durham and by the Central European University in Budapest) when divergent theoretical and methodological views about the orientations to be given to the project emerged.
The American researchers - Ellen S. Cohn, James L. Gibson, Susan O. White, Joseph Sanders, Joan McCord and Felice Levine - chose to skirt around these diverging viewpoints; and they submitted a project of their own to the NSF, which lent its financial support. The methods used in the project and especially the finalized version of the questions figuring in the survey mainly came out of their decisions. The four European researchers who cooperated in the survey for their own countries are now presenting their interpretations of the data.
These interpretations can be compared with the viewpoints adopted by the American researchers in: James L. Gibson & Gregory A. Caldeira, "The legal cultures of Europe", Law and society review, 1996, XXX-1, pp.55-85; Ellen S. Cohn & Susan O. White, "Legal socialization effects on democratization", International social science journal, 1997, 152; James L. Gibson, "Putting up with fellow Russians: An analysis of political tolerance in the fledgling Russian democracy", Political research quarterly, 1998, LI-1; James L. Gibson, Gregory A. Caldeira & Vanessa A. Baird, "On the legitimacy of national high courts", American political science review, 1998, XCII-2.
Legal consciousness, social anxiety and cultural models : Europe vs. the USA
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