Legal Norms

Scope Note

Extent of differentiation of social norms enforceable by some organ of politically constituted society from those enforced only by informal social control; conception of law (e.g., as precedent, as a body of absolute or relative principles); comparative prevalence of customary or common law and of "made" laws (e.g., edicts, decrees, ordinances, statutes, constitutions, binding judicial or administrative decisions, imposed taboos, divine revelations); lawgivers; law codes; legal categories (e.g., civil and criminal law); legal rules and administrative law; jurisprudence; uniform and multiple systems of law; etc.