The Study of Knowledge and Opinion about Law and Legal Consciousness: Contemporary Perspectives

Panel proposal of the RG KOL-LC to the upcoming RCSL conference in Lund (30 August – 1 September 2023)

The study of citizens’ perceptions of law is still a major area of research in contemporary socio-legal studies. The roots of this field of study go back to the early 1970s when the well-known Knowledge and Opinion about Law (KOL) studies started in Europe. This panel is dedicated to discussing how the new experiences may contribute to the development of this study areas. For instance, due to the broadening of the European rule of law crisis in the last years the scholarly understanding of mass and individual attitudes towards the law and their impact on the perception of law has become more and more relevant in Europe if one would like to have a refined scholarly picture on the situation.

Thus, this panel invites contributions that cover qualitative or quantitative study of either citizens’ perceptions of law or legal consciousness in a general European perspective or with a specific country focus. Contributions having a comparative scope are especially welcome as these may also help to better understand of the complexity of these questions. In addition, conceptual or methodological papers are also invited since the scholarly background of studying these issues is still far from being generally settled.

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please email to Balázs Fekete (fekete.balazs<at>ajk.elte.hu)

(The call for papers for the Lund RCLS 2023 Conference closes on 28 February 2023.)

This page last updated 10 December 2022