A Legal Concept of Community

The concept of community has a new importance for legal theory and legal sociology. It allows an escape from traditional conceptions of the relationship between law, state and political society. It makes possible the development of a pluralistic view of law that realistically recognises powerful globalising and localising pressures shaping contemporary law. Community is best thought of initially in terms of four ideal types of collective involvement, derived from Weber's types of social action. These imply different kinds of trusting relationships and different regulatory needs. A sense of attachment and a degree of stability in relationships is also necessary to community. Actual groups combine relationships of community in many different ways. Law's contemporary task is to express and coordinate the regulatory needs surrounding structures of community within and beyond the nation state.