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Chapter 2 - The Symbolic Uses of Law

At the Heart of a Political Sociology of Law*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2018

Mauricio García-Villegas
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the symbolic uses of law, understood as a strategy adopted by protagonists of the legal field (such as lawmakers, lawyers, and judges) or by citizens who use rights or other legal norms to achieve their political goals. These actors perform a kind of political battle for the meaning of legal texts, either by reducing or enlarging that meaning. The law is a cultural system of meaning as well as a system of instrumental controls. While the instrumental efficacy of legal language determines conduct as a result of its obligatory character or its technical capacity to regulate and organize society, the symbolic efficacy of legal language achieves its objectives through the communication of images of justice, equity, security, and other values perceived as essential for social life. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides an overview of existing perspectives on the symbolic efficacy of the law; the second presents a typology of political uses of the law; and the last section discusses the political potential of legal language.
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Chapter
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The Powers of Law
A Comparative Analysis of Sociopolitical Legal Studies
, pp. 19 - 37
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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