printComparative View on the Development of Sociological Schools of Law in Russia and the USA
Vasiliev A.A.
Dr. Sci. (Law), Assoc. Prof., Leading Researcher, Institute of State and Law of RAS, Moscow, Russia anton_vasiliev@mail.ru
Pechatnova Yu.V.
Cand. Sci. (Law), Junior Researcher, Institute of State and Law of RAS, Moscow, Russia jp_0707@mail.ru
The study was carried out within the f ramework of the scientific project “Creation of a Russian historiographic model of political and legal knowledge and its application to the development of promising means of counteracting ideological distortions of the civilizational development of Russia”, carried out with the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia (agreement dated July 12, 2024 No. 075-15-2024-639).
Vasiliev A.A., Pechatnova Yu.V. Comparative View on the Development of Sociological Schools of Law in Russia and the USA. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2026. No 3. P. 111-122
The article is devoted to a comparative historical analysis of the Russian and American sociological schools of law in the 19th‑21st centuries, with a focus on the key stages of their formation, institutional factors of their development, and theoretical-methodological features. The primary methods used are historical-legal analysis, which allows tracing the evolution of scientific schools in the USA and Russia; comparative analysis, aimed at identifying similarities and differences between the Russian and American traditions; and historical-graphical analysis, which involves the interpretation of legal approaches and trends in the history of legal science. The sociological school in the USA was formed within the Anglo-Saxon legal system; the Russian sociological school – under the influence of the continental legal system. The object of criticism for the US sociological school was the formalism and mechanization of the judicial process, while for Russian sociology of law, it was dogmatism and the gap between the letter and the spirit of the law. The subject of law-making in the US sociological school is the judge; in the Russian sociological school – the legislator and society, which are considered together as generators of legal norms. The value of law within the American sociological approach lies in the practical plane (law as a tool of social engineering); within the Russian approach, it manifests itself in the cognitive-critical explanation of social reality.
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