Methodology in the New Legal World

Abstract

Law is a discipline in transition moving, among others, from a predominantly monodisciplinary dogmatic tradition towards more and more attention for multidisciplinary and empirical legal research, from a national to a more international and global orientation and from a research culture of ‘laissez faire’ towards more managerial control, rankings and research programming. Questions lying in wait are, among others: how can we revitalise doctrinal legal research in Europe in a way that it is up for the challenges of the future, such as the blurring of borders between European and national law, public and private law and state and non-state law and what does the multidisciplinary turn in legal research mean for the education of law students and starting researchers? Moreover, how should legal scholars react to the increased instrumentalisation of law in order to avoid that legal research is reduced to a policy tool that is meant to ‘solve’ the major societal problems of today? We believe that what is required is not only more focus on methodology with a small ‘m’ concentrating on how to train new generations of academics to conduct different sorts of legal research. Just as much needed is more attention in research and education for the importance of methodology with a big ‘M’ aiming for (self- )criticism, awareness of the risk of advocacy scholarship and herd behaviour and concentrating on slow science: theory-building with the intention to explain why law in a globalised world develops as it does.