The Ideology of Law: Advances and Problems in Recent Applications of the Concept of Ideology to the Analysis of Law

In this paper I note the growth of analyses of law that focus upon its ideological character and content, and I identify problems and difficulties manifest in the ideological analysis in recent critical and Marxist texts. The paper argues that work focusing upon the ideological character of law realizes significant advances over that produced by the more orthodox approaches within the sociology of law and jurisprudence employing normative analysis. It is possible to make ideological analysis more rigorous. The paper outlines the elements of a theory of and methodology for the ideological analysis of law.