ABSTRACT
The major problem facing the student of legal culture is how to distinguish, conceptually as well as empirically, the interconnected categories of law, social structure and culture so as to develop 'theories and concepts that can highlight the distinctive role or significance of cultural factors' (Rokumoto, 1995). One promising route (though not the only one) to understanding legal culture is to examine it in comparative perspective. The search for similarities and differences in the meaning, significance and behaviour of law in different settings should make it easier to clarify what sense we should give to the term 'legal culture' and the role it could play in our explanations. But following the route of comparative enquiry is not without its special difficulties (Nelken, 1994; 1995). What are we comparing when we compare cultures or legal cultures? Should our unit of comparison be single institutions, communities, countries, the world society? What about cultural differences within countries - between areas, age groups, classes and genders or classes? How does legal culture relate to wider culture? Is comparison a question of explaining or of translating? Last, but not least, how far is it possible to avoid our definition of legal culture being already marked by the culture of the observer so that it reflects the situation in some societies better than others?
