Mathieu Deflem
Google Scholar | ResearchGate | ORCID
This is the English-language original of the "Author's Preface" in the Korean edition of Sociology of Law, 법사회학, 사회를 읽는 법, published by Kaos Books, January 2026.
The Korean version of this preface is available in PDF format.
Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2026. Author's Preface in the Korean edition of Sociology of Law (English-language version). Available online at Deflem.blogspot.com.
I am very pleased and honored to see my sociology of law book, originally published by Cambridge University Press (Deflem 2008), now also available in Korean translation. I hope its appearance in the Republic of South Korea will help to shed a light on what the sociology of law has to offer as one disciplinary perspective in the broader multidisciplinary field of law and social science. It will in turn also be interesting to observe and learn from the Korean efforts that are made in law-related matters of theory and research within the world of sociological studies of law more generally.
In the book, I devote a short section in the concluding chapter to the globalization of the sociology of law and its development in various national settings. While I was able to review briefly a number of national contributions to the sociology of law, I could not discuss the development of the sociology of law in Korea. I will now also leave such an analysis to my colleagues working in Korea, but a few observations and questions can be raised based on my admittedly somewhat limited knowledge as others have discussed it. Most notably, Kun Yang (1989, 2001) has provided overviews of the development of the sociology of law in Korea, which remarkably note a pattern similar to that which can be observed in many other nations (see also Goedde 2022; Lee 2014). The Korean sociology of law developed during the years after World War II at first mostly on the basis of the introduction of the famous classical contributions by the likes of Max Weber and Georges Gurvitch. Strikingly, as has been the case in other countries as well, these distinctly sociological insights in the study of law were initially picked up by legal scholars, not by sociologists. As such, Korean sociology of law was also shaped by jurisprudence, not only by sociology, and it may also maintain a special relationship therewith today.
Among the central substantive themes of early sociology of law (and other law and society studies) in Korea in the early years, much attention went, understandably, to the observed gap between law as abstract ideal and law as measurable reality. This problem was in the Korean context during the first decades following colonial rule even more pronounced than elsewhere given the tension between native and foreign concepts of law. The conflict between pro-modern times and the advent of modernity formally nonetheless has many similarities with other countries. More troublesome, but also felt in other nations, are the negative implications of law and society research having been carried on at first without due regard for the perspectives and methods of sociology.
I cannot comment intelligently about the role of culture on the Korean understanding of law relative to similar such forces stemming from political and economic systems (Yang 1989, pp. 895-896). Yet, I hope that these and other aspects of the relationship between law and other institutions of the social order are properly theorized and examined in empirical research (see, e.g., the contributions in Yang 2013). Relatedly, it is important to keep a broad sociological attention to the study of these complex relationships, for otherwise we might lose sight of the multidimensional nature of society and its constituent parts. At the same time, of course, advances can and should be made in a more general framework of so-called law and society studies, such as they have long been advanced in Korea in an institutionalized form through the Korean Law and Society Association and its dedicated journal. At the same time, as a sociologist of law I also hope that the sociological study of law has also begun to be taken more seriously within the Korean institutions of sociology and, in turn, that the unique contributions sociology has to offer to the study of law are well received among other scholars studying the conditions and consequences of law in society.
Ending on a brief personal note, I have visited Korea several times, for both professional and personal reasons. Among my visits relevant in the present context are presentations I delivered at a conference on human rights at Seoul National University in 2009 (published as Deflem and Chicoine 2011) and at the World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at Soongsil University in 2024 (available on YouTube as Deflem 2024). Importantly, I believe, these presentations did not deal with Korean conditions, which I would not have been able to speak on, but instead concerned themes more generally shared as interests and concerns among fellow scholars, within and beyond the borders of the Korean Republic. The fact that such border-crossing experiences are today not only more readily possible but also more frequently realized testifies to the recognized place of Korea as firmly established within the global constellation of academics and scholarship.
Whether one opposes or supports the idea of a regionally specific sociology in the post-development Korea of today (Kwon 2024), it remains in any case important for Korean sociologists of law to carve out their own unique contributions relative to other social-science scholars studying law as well as in relation to their fellow sociologists who are specialized in other substantive areas. Perhaps this book, written primarily to outline the specific contours of the sociology of law, can help in some modest way to affirm the role Korean sociologists of law can play in the wider world of likeminded sociologists elsewhere in the global village.
References
Deflem, Mathieu. 2008. Sociology of Law: Visions of a Scholarly Discipline. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Deflem, Mathieu. 2024. “Democracy and Law: A View from the United States.” Presented at the 31st World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR). Soongsil University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, July 2024. Available as video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rss7wa7sBy0
Deflem, Mathieu, and Stephen Chicoine. 2011. “The Sociological Discourse on Human Rights: Lessons from the Sociology of Law.” Development and Society 40(1):101-114.
Goedde, Patricia. 2022. “Advancing Korean Law and Society Studies: International Perspectives on the Korean Legal Profession.” Sungkyunkwan Law Review 34(4):253-278.
Kwon, Hyukmin. 2024. “Finding the Identity of Korean Sociology in Functional Differentiation: Is Korea-Specific Social Theory Possible in World Society?” Journal of Asian Sociology 53(4):343-362.
Lee, Chulwoo. 2014. “Hegemony, Contestation, and Empowerment: The Politics of Law and Society Studies in South Korea.” Asian Journal of Law and Society 1(2):275-304.
Yang, Hyunah (Editor). 2013. Law and Society in Korea. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Yang, Kun. 1989. “Law and Society Studies in Korea: Beyond the Hahm Theses.” Law & Society Review 23(5):891-902.
Yang, Kun. 2001. “The Sociology of Law in Korea” The American Sociologist 32(2):78-84.
Mathieu Deflem is Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. His research and teaching interests include law, social control, policing, popular culture, and social theory. Recent research concerns the dynamics of law and culture, celebrity activism, and contemporary challenges of international terrorism and police cooperation. More information is available via his website at: Deflem.blogspot.com.
