Socio 3
Socio 3
Socio 3
SOCIOLOGY
I would like to thank my faculty Dr.Honey Kumar, whose guidance helped me a lot with
structuring of my assignment. I take this opportunity to express my deep sense of gratitude for his
guidance and encouragement which sustained my efforts on all stages of this assignment. I owe the
present accomplishment of my assignment to my friends, who helped me immensely with materials
throughout the assignment and without whom I couldn’t have completed it in the present way. I
would also like to extend my gratitude to my parents and all those unseen hands that helped me out
at every stage of my assignment.
Ayush Sharma
B.A.LLB (3rd semester)
T Roll no: - 1020212276
TABLE OF CONTENTS
❖ INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................I
❖ MEANING OF LAW IN SOCIOLOGICAL CONTEXT ............................................. 7
❖ THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE................................................................................ 9
❖ CHARACTERSTICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE ............................................................. 11
❖ TYPES OF SOCIAL CHANGE ................................................................................. 12
EMERGENT CHANGE ..........................................................................................................12
TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE ........................................................................................... 13
PROJECTABLE CHANGE ..................................................................................................... 14
❖ RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE .............................. 14
❖ LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE ............................................ 15
AN EXAMPLE OF INDIA ...................................................................................................... 16
❖ SOCIAL CHANGE AS CAUSE OF LEGAL CHANGE ........................................ 18
❖ MAJOR FINDINGS ............................................................................................... 19
❖ CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................21
❖ BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................22
WEBLIOGRAPHY 22
INTRODUCTION
Social change is a continuous process which searches alternatives to stable man's culture and their
lives too. It is another thing its pace varies from age to age, culture to culture and from one area of
culture to that of another. Social change leads to a new social structure within a group.
Social change on one hand produces new traits and on the other hand it ends the traditional
customs. Thus social changes may come through education, acculturation and sanskritisation. It has
also been observed that many factors such as natural, geographical, biological, demographic,
technological, economic, psychological, political, military, cultural, ideological and role of great
man etc. too effect social change. But for a variety of reasons the pace of social change has been
rather slow in some cultures. It is well known that every cultural group is a part of nation/state
which is governed by some law and legislature. There is a reciprocal relationship between law and
social change. Law is both an effect and cause of social change and provides strategy for social
change.
In the broadest sense law includes all customs and rules, whose observance is required and
enforced by a recognized authority. However, for sociological purposes it is better to limit the
term law to formally enacted and recorded norms by legitimate authority.
Laws are enacted by legislatures. The law making system in every society produces
Legislations concerning various aspects of life. Some of them are framed to maintain law and
order in the society and some are applied to remove social evils and change the conservative
faiths and beliefs. The term social legislation is used to depict these legislations. Social
legislation plays a dynamic role in society. They are effective instruments of social change.
Income redistribution, nationalization of industries, land reforms and provisions of free
education are examples of the effectiveness of law to initiate change.
Law brings about social change both directly and indirectly. In many cases law interacts
directly with social institutions and brings about obvious changes. A law prohibiting Polygamy
has a direct influence on society. It alters the behavior of individuals. On the Other hand, law
plays an indirect role by shaping various social institutions which in turn have a direct impact on
society. For example, the system of compulsory education enables the functioning of educational
institutions which in turn leads to social change.
Law also brings social change by redefining the normative order and creates the possibility
of new forms of social institutions. It provides formal facilities and extends rights to individuals.
The law against untouchability has not only prohibited the inhuman practice but has also
given formal rights to those who suffered from such disabilities to protest against it. Thus law not
only codifies certain customs and morals but also modifies the behaviour and values existing in a
particular society.
Thus law entails two interrelated processes- the institutionalisation and the internalisation
of patterns of behaviour. Institutionalisation means the creation of norms with provisions for its
enforcement, whereas internalisation means the incorporation and acceptance of values implicit
in a law. When the institutionalisation process is successful it in turn facilitates the internalization
of attitudes and beliefs1.
In our quest to discover the effect of law on social change, we generally tend to ignore the
reverse, i.e., the effect of social change on law. That legal change reflects wider social change
often seems too obvious to require discussion2. For example, technological change is one
important direct cause of legal change: the development of the internal combustion engine, the
motor car and later of air transport produced vast areas of new or reshaped legal doctrine to
regulate these new features of life with their attendant possibilities, risks and dangers.
In addition, law can adapt to change in ways that may not be readily apparent on the face of
legal doctrine. Legal concepts can remain in the same form while fundamentally changing their
social functions. Law can adapt to changed social circumstances without necessarily changing its
form or structure.
In this project, it has tried to study the interplay between law and social change – the role of law
as an instrument of social change, and the impact of social developments on the development of
legal principles.
MEANING OF LAW IN SOCIOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Law is a social phenomenon and has been of interest to sociology since the early days of the
discipline. However, much discussion of law has been and remains monopolized by legal
practitioners and legal theorists who primarily focus on legal doctrine; they are concerned to
analyze patterns, directions and inconsistencies in judicial thinking and decision making. They
attend to social factors in discussing the kinds of values reflected in judicial statements and the
ways in which judges resolve practical, everyday dilemmas in deciding cases. The enduring
emphasis is on analyzing appellate cases. Indeed, the sociology of law is more often taught in
law schools by law academics (albeit with a strong interest in the social sciences and/or social
science training) than in sociology departments. For many sociologists, law is derivative of
broader (or more authentic) sociological concerns, for example social control and deviance, or is
treated within other substantive areas such as labor relations, the welfare state and social policy,
crime, bureaucratic organizations or contemporary family relations3. Many sociological
definitions of law stress its normative character and are concerned with the responses to
behaviour that violates laws.
Sociological discussions of law are often limited to discussions of the criminal law,
its operation and administration. Law and sociology are often presented as two distinct
disciplines and bodies of knowledge. For example, Cotterrell – a socio-legal theorist – seeks to
understand ‘the nature and effects of confrontations between such different fields of knowledge
and practice as those of law and sociology ... [that have] quite different historical origins or
patterns of development, social and institutional contexts of existence, and social and political
consequences. Another commentator disagrees that the common law can be considered a social
science because of the two disciplines’ different epistemological approaches: the former relies on
adjudication to discern ‘facts’ and on precedent to resolve present disputes, while the latter relies
on ‘positivity’, the constitution of knowledge via empirical research and the deployment of
statistical analyses.
Certainly, the development of law and sociology in western societies occurs within different
institutions and bodies of knowledge (as professionally defined). However, they have very
similar subject matters: both are concerned with social relationships, values, social regulation,
obligations and expectations arising from particular social positions and roles, and the linkages
between individuals and society. Almost any aspect of social life can be subject to legal
regulation and judicial statements do have similarities with social theory (and often read like
social theory). Nonetheless, the substance of law in western democratic societies primarily deals
1 Friedman, Lawrence M. and Jack Ladinsky, Social Change and the Law of Industrial Accidents,Columbia Law
Review, 1967, p:50
with the regulation of property relationships and the enunciation and protection of property
rights.
Sociology is more interested in a wider array of social relationships and investigates
inequality and power at both structural and interpersonal levels. While jurists are concerned
primarily with the activities of courts, especially the process of legal reasoning, sociologists are
more interested in the interconnections between law and changing social institutions, political
structures and economic conditions and the relationships between legal institutions and other
forms of dispute resolution, social control or regulation. At a more individual or micro level,
social researchers investigate how various actors – including lawyers, judges, social activists and
people in everyday life – experience, use, interpret, negotiate and confront law, legal institutions
and legal discourse.
Law is rooted in social institutions, in socio-economic network. These social factors
influence the course of law or the direction of legal change. This is the outcome of personal and
social interactions which are variable and often unpredictable. At the same time, law may itself
change social norms in various ways.
For example, in free India, legal abolition of untouchability is an attempt to change a long-
standing social norm. Yet it has not succeeded much due to inadequate social support. Thus there
is a reciprocal relationship between law and society.
3 http://www.preservearticles.com/social-change-and-its-characteristics.html
earth-quake, war, political revolution and other natural calamities. Thus, social change occurs
both in planned and unplanned manner.
(6) Social change may be short term or long term
Some change brings immediate change which is known as short term change, like fashion,
behavior of the individual etc. But other changes take years to produce result which is known as
long term change. Custom, tradition, folkways, mores etc. are long term changes.
(7) Social change lacks definite prediction
Prediction means 'foretelling' in case of social change we are well aware of various factors but
we cannot predict although it is a law. Definite prediction of social change is not possible,
because what will the result of social change we cannot say.
(8) Social change is a community change
Social change does not refer to the change which occurs in the life of an individual or life pattern
of individuals. It is a change which occurs in the entire community and that change can be called
social change which influences a community form.
(9) Social change is the result of the interaction of variousfactors
A single factor can trigger a particular change but never causes social change. It is always
associated with other factors such as Cultural, Biological, Physical, Technological and others. It
is due to the material interdependence of social phenomena.
1. EMERGENT CHANGE
Emergent change describes the day-to-day unfolding of life, adaptive and uneven processes of
unconscious and conscious learning from experience and the change that results from that. This
applies to individuals, families, communities, organizations and societies adjusting to shifting
realities, of trying to improve and enhance what they know and do, of building on what is there,
step-by-step, uncertainly, but still learning and adapting, however well or badly.
This is likely the most prevalent and enduring form of change existing in any living system.
Whole books, under various notions of complex systems, chaos theory and emergence, have
been written about this kind of change, describing how small accumulative changes at the
margins can affect each other in barely noticeable ways and add up to significant systemic
patterns and changes over time; how apparently chaotic systems are governed by deeper,
complex social principles that defy easy understanding or manipulation, that confound the best-
laid plans, where paths of cause and effect are elusive, caught in eddies of vicious and virtuous
circles. Emergent change is paradoxical, where perceptions, feelings and intentions are as
powerful as the facts they engage with.
Emergent change processes take two forms:
(I) Less conscious emergent change
This kind of emergent change tends to occur where there are unformed and unclear
identities, relationships, structures or leadership, under shifting and uncertain
environments, internally and externally, with no crises or stucknesses being evident
and being unfavourable for conscious development Projects. Being less conscious it
may be less predictable, more chaotic and haphazard than more conscious emergent
change.
(II) More conscious emergent change.
3. PROJECTABLE CHANGE
Where the internal and external environments, especially the relationships, of a system are
coherent, stable and predictable enough, and where unpredictable outcomes do not threaten
desired results, then the conditions for projectable change arise and well-planned projects
become possible.
AN EXAMPLE OF INDIA
The intervening nineteenth century was pivotal in that it saw the initiation of this process that
brought about an enormous transformation in the religious, social, economic, political and
cultural spheres of Indian society. Many interrelated factors where in what in this transformation.
The British Raj influenced Indian life through many channels: administration, legislation, treads,
new systems of communication, inchoative industrialisation and urbanisation, all has great
influence of the society as a whole, because every measure in some way interfered with some
traditional patterns of life.
The sum total of these influences on the life and ideas of the people forced them to adjust their
patterns of life to the new circumstances thus affecting a continuum of social change.
In a broad theoretical framework, social change has been slow enough to make custom the
principal source of law. Law could respond to social change over decades or even centuries.
Today the tempo of social change accelerated to a point where today’s assumptions may not be
valid even in a few years from now. The emergence of new risks to the individual as a result of
the decrease of the various family functions, including the protective function, has led to the
creation of legal innovations to protect the individuals in modern society. Eg provisions of
workers compensation, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions. Many sociologists and legal
scholars assert on the basis of a large amount of accumulated data that technology is one of the
great moving forces for change in law in ways13. The computer and easy access to cyberspace,
especially internet, also have inspired legislation on both the federal and the state levels to
safeguard privacy, protects against abuse of credit information and computer crime. Change in
law may be induced by a voluntary and gradual shift in community values and attitudes.
[eg. People may think that poverty is bad, and laws should be created to reduce it in some way.]
Alternations in social conditions, technology knowledge values, and attitudes then may induce
legal change in such cases law is reactive and follows social change. However, changes in law
are only one of many responses to social change. Additionally, laws can be considered both as
reactive and proactive in social change.
Meaning of law in sociological context
For many sociologists, law is derivative of broader (or more authentic) sociological concerns, for
example social control and deviance, or is treated within other substantive areas such as labor
relations, the welfare state and social policy, crime, bureaucratic organizations or contemporary
family relations14. Many sociological definitions of law stress its normative character and are
concerned with the responses to behavior that violates laws.
CONCLUSION
The history of mankind reveals that human wisdom has devised different methods and means to
meet the structural changes in the social system which take place with the advancement of
knowledge, culture and civilization. Law has always been considered as one of the important
instruments of affecting social change. Though there are several devices to bring about a change
and reformation in society, but reformation through law is perhaps one of the most effective and
safest methods to achieve this end.
A change in the established pattern of social relations between racial or ethnic groups in a
society would constitute social change, but a general increase or decrease in the amount of
economic wealth in a society would not.
In our quest to discover the effect of law on social change, we generally tend to ignore the
reverse, i.e., the effect of social change on law. That legal change reflects wider social change
often seems too obvious to require discussion. For example, technological change is one
important direct cause of legal change: the development of the internal combustion engine, the
motor car and later of air transport produced vast areas of new or reshaped legal doctrine to
regulate these new features of life with their attendant possibilities, risks and dangers.
It is a fact that the tendency of the society is to look for stability and certainty, as the society
is conversant with the existing practices. They would be sure that the law of yesterday would
still be the law of tomorrow. But stability and certainty alone, however, are not sufficient to
provide us with an effective, vital system of law. Progress also has a justified claim upon the
law. In the contemporary scenario, law needs to play a proactive role in bringing about social
change.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
➢ Pandey, J.N., Constitutional Law of India, Central Law Agency, Allahabad, 2005.
➢ Jain, M.P., Indian Constitutional Law, Wadhwa Publications, Nagpur, 2005.
➢ Kothari, Rajni, Politics in India, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1970.
➢ Jha, S.N. & Mathur, P.C., Decentralisation and Local Politics, Sage Publications,
New
Delhi, 1999.
➢ Dev Indra, Sociology of Law, Oxford University Press, 2005
WEBLIOGRAPHY
➢ http://faizlawjournal.blogspot.in
➢ http://preservearticles.com
➢ www.law.harvard.edu
➢ www.airwebworld.com