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Explaining the reception of the Code Napoleon in Germany: a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

TT Arvind  and
Lindsay Stirton
TT Arvind
Affiliation:
York Law School, University of York
Lindsay Stirton
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Manchester
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Abstract

This paper examines the diverse responses of the German states to the Code Napoleon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These states differed both in the extent to which they adopted the Code, and the extent to which they retained the Code after Napoleon's influence waned. In order to identify the causes of adoption and retention of the Code, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). This method is now well established in comparative research in the social sciences but has been little used in comparative legal analysis. We find the following to be among the conditions relevant to the reception of the Code: territorial diversity, control by Napoleon, central state institutions, a feudal economy and society, liberal (enlightented absolutist) rule, nativism among the governing elites and popular anti-French sentiment. The paper also serves to demonstrate the potential of fsQCA as a method for comparative lawyers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2010

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Footnotes

*

Winner of the SLS Best Paper Prize 2009. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at departmental seminars in York and Manchester. We would like to thank the participants at these sessions and to the following individuals for encouragement and sometimes critical suggestions: Oscar Alvarez-Macotela, John Bell, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Stefan Enchelmeier, Paula Giliker, William Lucy, Hisako Nomura, Mathias Siems and Jenny Steele. For the remaining errors and omissions, each co-author blames the other.

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