When "Stuff Happens" Isn't Enough: How An Evolutionary Theory of Doctrinal and Legal System Development Can Enrich Comparative Legal Studies

Goodenough Oliver R.
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Goodenough Oliver R.: Vermont Law School and Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Review of Law & Economics, 2011, vol. 7, issue 3, 805-820

Abstract: Comparative legal scholarship will benefit from better explanations of legal development. While the complications of legal systems are a challenge for cause and effect stories, evolutionary theory offers a powerful, yet relatively simple, set of explanatory principles that can be appropriately applied to both doctrinal topics and legal systems as a whole. The necessary starting point for an evolutionary analysis is to examine the three core components of evolution: descent, variation, and selection. Engaging these topics and developing good descriptions for each of them for the targeted system can be very helpful in providing good explanations to the “why” questions of comparative law analysis.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.2202/1555-5879.1572

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