Law in the semi-periphery: revisiting an ambitious theory in the light of recent Portuguese socio-legal research

Abstract

There is currently no mechanism – no journal; no learned society – somehow integrating Portuguese sociology of law, despite a considerable academic production. In an attempt to appreciate globally and substantially this production, this paper takes as a starting point the theory of semi-periphery formulated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos in the 1980s and revisits the findings of socio-legal research carried out in Portugal over the recent decades in the light of that theory. The conclusion that can be drawn from this exercise is that the theory of semi-periphery – provided it is upgraded in order to better take into account features of recent processes of globalisation – still supplies a valuable framework for the reflection on the social, economic and political conditions that favour uses of the law as a tool for human groupings to govern themselves.