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Influences of Social Organization on Dispute Processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

William L.F. Felstiner
William L.F. Felstiner*
Affiliation:
University of California Los Angeles
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Man is an ingenious social animal. Institutionalized responses to interpersonal conflict, for instance, stretch from song duels and witchcraft to moots and mediation to self-conscious therapy and hierarchical, professionalized courts. The dispute processing practices prevailing in any particular society are a product of its values, its psychological imperatives, its history and its economic, political and social organization. It is unlikely that any general theory encompassing all of these factors will be developed until there have been many piecemeal attempts to understand something of the influence of each.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 9 , Issue 1: Litigation and Dispute Processing: Part I , Fall 1974 , pp. 63 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

I received substantial encouragement in working through this analysis from Jan Collier, Richard Danzig, Robert Stevens and David Trubek and valuable direction from Richard Abel, Celestine Arndt, Richard Canter, Marc Galanter, Robert Kidder and Mark Peterson.

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