60

This article is the result of a talk given on the occasion of the publication of the n° 100 of Droit et Société, about the article “After Legal Consciousness Studies” by Susan Silbey. We compare the reception of the American study of legal consciousness in Japan and France, and note three points. First, the article was deemed relevant to France’s social law tradition and it tries to link it to the study of the legal mobilization. In Japan, it was associated with a postmodern trend and linked to the creation of an alternative mode of dispute resolution. Second, Japan imported Western law for modernization and it was thought that there was a mismatch between the legal consciousness of the Japanese and the idea of modern law, so that qualitative and quantitative studies of legal consciousness were considered complementary. Third, if we refer to Weber’s concept of legality, we will be able to study legal consciousness from a more global and historical perspective.