Patterns of Legal Culture: The Netherlands Compared to Neighboring Germany

Journal Article Patterns of Legal Culture: The Netherlands Compared to Neighboring Germany Get access Erhard Blankenburg Erhard Blankenburg 1Ernest Blankenbuhg is professor in Sociology of Law at the Free University at Amsterdam. Most of the data for this comparison have been collected at the beginning of the 1990s and have subsequently been updated. Rather than commenting on recent changes in both countries I attempt to describe ideal-typical features of both legal cultures on an indicator basis. For many of the comparisons I resort to data of Northrhine-Wesphalia, the German state neighboring to the Netherlands, because socio-economic conditions are nicely kept constant. This means that the differences which arise between East and West Germany after unification are not commented upon, nor do our indicators capture all of the institutional changes in both legal cultures in reaction to the integration of European legal systems. Especially in the 1990s traditional features of the Dutch legal culture are under pressures of change, while the German system of justice seems to be mainly consolidating its present institutional make-up. Wherever possible I indicate the direction which recent trends are taking Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 46, Issue 1, Winter 1998, Pages 1–41, https://doi.org/10.2307/841077 Published: 01 January 1998