Comparative cross-cultural data suggest that legal characteristics occur in a standard sequential order. Mediation, police, and counsel are scaled in a sample of fifty-one societies; and their occurrence bears a systematic relationship to other attributes of the folk-urban continuum. Theoretical implications include possible relationships between damages and mediation, a partial disconfirmation of Durkheim's Division of Labor hypothesis, and a suggestion of some factors affecting the rise of specialized counsel. Practical implications relate to developing societies and, with qualifications, to the evolution of international legal control.
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Schwartz et al. (1964) studied this question.