The Theory of Legal Regulation: Current Discourse and Criticism

The article is devoted to a critical analysis of current concepts related to legal regulation and its understanding in science. The article reveals the features of legal regulation in the context of a mechanistic-instrumental approach and as a systemic phenomenon in the context of informatization of public life and legal communication. The article shows the importance of a systematic understanding of legal regulation and its assessment in the context of the legitimization of law. The authors substantiate the importance of communicative procedures in legal regulation in the context of modernization and digitalization of the legal system. The purpose of the study is to identify the specifics of legal regulation in modern society, taking into account the values that determine its specifics. Research methodology: classical methods of legal science, as well as methods of postclassical jurisprudence and social phenomenology. The deconstruction method is the main method of critical analysis of legal meta-narratives of the Enlightenment era. The method of phenomenological reduction, which allows us to identify the eidos of modern law. Conclusions. Jurisprudence should consider legal regulation based on socio-cultural factors that determine the specifics of law-making and law enforcement. These measures are necessary to overcome the crisis phenomena in law (legitimization, crisis of legitimacy, the formation of dead norms). Despite the fact that such crisis processes inevitably occur due to the ongoing processes of social modernization, which requires an increase in the number of laws. In this context, the communicative aspect of legal regulation makes it possible to identify existing issues of trust and social capital. Therefore, legal regulation is not only a kind of tool or mechanism for streamlining relations, but also, to a lesser extent, a way to support communication links between equal citizens who participate in the discussion of decisions taken at the legislative level.