ABSTRACT
The co-evolution of norms and law has not – with a few exceptions – been systematically dealt with in legal history. This chapter contains an attempt to achieve this from a Western world point of view, starting with legal cultures that have shaped law in the perspective of market economy, as well as of industrial society.
Law contributes to the reproduction of the different action systems by resolving intra-system conflicts that the action systems are not capable of resolving spontaneously themselves. In line with the cyclical understanding of societal development, a theory of law in a transitional society is presented. In cases of intersystem conflict, i.e. when action systems collide and place incompatible demands on people in their daily lives, law is used to protect the reproduction of the social construction itself. This latter function of the legal system is referred to as intervening rules with unique characteristics in comparison with other legal rules. Intervening rules require a new scientific paradigm based in empirical conditions that should be understood in terms of norms. Therefore, a future jurisprudential paradigm must be incorporated into a larger body of knowledge of norm science.
