ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the large variety of work on law and social change. It starts by looking at the impact of changes in society on changes in law and examines the impact of changes in law on changes in society. The chapter discusses law and social movements, a subfield within the larger law and social change rubric that attracts attention from both scholars of law and society and of social movements. It explains what is meant by treating law as an independent variable versus a dependent variable in the study of law and social change. The chapter describes Max Weber's contribution to the study of law and social change. It outlines the problems in determining the actual impact that a legal change might have and also explains why social movements may have difficulty in using the law to achieve social change. The chapter discusses legal mobilization by the Southern civil rights movement and other movements of the last several decades.
