PS 3250 Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven Book Notes

• School: Oakland University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: PS 3250
• Professor: Julie Walters

Document Summary

Social change may be defined as any relatively enduring alteration in social relationships, behavior patterns, values, norms, and attitudes occurring over time. The law is mostly reactive rather than proactive in social change; it reacts to social forces rather than sets such forces in motion. When the law no longer enjoys an organic relationship with custom, society is in the process of cultural fracture. American law cannot be based on the customs and morality of just one group. Law based on universalistic principles of justice should regulate social behavior, not the customs of one particular subset of society that are defended by positivist law. There is a reciprocal relationship between law and social change. We may consider the role of law in social change to be most often facilitative rather than causative. Once a social movement is observed successfully making its rights claim, other previously silent groups are aroused in what has been called a contagion effect.