a) Encourage studies and in-depth research in the concentration area Law and Society to examine how the government's law production process is received and complied with by society;

b) Examine society's expectations about the laws in force and how it reacts in terms of both the Law implementation process and new law-drafting proposals.

c) Look into the growing expectations created with respect to the Courts' work, either because of the other branches' lack of effective work or the increasing number of laws enacted.

d) Examine the role played by Institutions in the way Law is enforced, and thereby try to find the reasons for its low coercion rates in (the Brazilian) society.

e) Understand the effectiveness of laws in an ever-changing society, based on the assumption that what has been enacted necessarily depends on social factors to be effective.

f) Trace the – necessary – correlations between the growing social complexity and the role of Law considering such changes, and discuss crosswise standpoints about the juridicization of social spheres, i.e. the effect of Law on the host of social relationships established and also on how society sees Law and vice versa.

g) Considering an increasingly multi-contextualized society, examine to what extent the Law (devised – and applied – based on the notions of hierarchy and Nation-States) finds itself in a transformative time in which society takes part in decision-making process previously monopolized by the government;

h) Understand the juridicization process of (real and virtual) social spheres, the production of Non-State Law, the need for alternatives to the process of legitimizing the production of laws, addressing the formation of private and public law outside of (and separate from) the State, alternative ways to settle conflicts, and other topics related to the role of Law in a contemporary society. 

i) Build theory-based and hands-on legal knowledge that is not dissociated from people's actual, and also plural, reality.

Effectiveness of Law in the Society (LP 1)

Focused on the issue of Law's legitimacy before society, that is, how the process of the state's production of laws is received and complied with by society. Therefore, its goal is also to examine society's expectations about the laws in force and how it reacts in terms of both the Law implementation process and new law-drafting proposals. Likewise, it looks into the growing expectations created with respect to the Courts' work, either because of the other branches' lack of effective work or the increasing number of laws enacted. Consequently, it examines the role played by Institutions in the way Law is enforced, and thereby tries to find the reasons for its low coercion rates in (the Brazilian) society. The program seeks to understand the effectiveness of laws in an ever-changing society.

Faculty: Diógenes Vicente Hassan Ribeiro, Fernanda Luiza Fontoura de Medeiros, Jayme Weingartner Neto, Leonel Pires Ohlweiler, Maria Cláudia Mércio Cachapuz, Selma Rodrigues Petterle, Sérgio Urquhart de Cademartori.

Projects connected to the Line of Research: Click here for project abstracts

Topics addressed:

 - Multiculturalism at the bases of democratic constitutionalism;

 - Guarantees instituted in the new South American constitutionalism;

- State and Social Control of Scientific Research in the Field of Human Health: Limits and Possibilities;

- Social theories of Law and the thoughts of Jürgen Habermas: Communicative process and the application of discourse ethics to the relationships;

- The Principles of Public Administration and the Legitimacy of Administrative Law: democratization and effectiveness;

- An in-depth discussion about the possibility of applying the principle of precaution in view of the legal-constitutional regulations;

- The judicial branch in review: access to justice, contemporary difficulties, and prognoses.

Society and Fragmentation of Law (LP 2)

It builds on the assumption that Law was devised based on the notion of Nation-State because there was a correspondence with the characteristics of a society that provided the conditions for it to emerge and affirm itself. Hence, to the extent that the global society is presenting characteristics that it is operating in a network and clearly tending toward eliminating borders, the Law devised and applied based on the notions of hierarchy and Nation-States is undergoing a time of change. Its fragmentation therefore derives from – interdisciplinary – social forces that operate on it and generate decisive changes. With that, the program seeks to encompass the juridicization process of (real and virtual) social spheres, the production of Non-State Law, the need for alternatives to the process of legitimizing the production of laws, and addressing the formation of private and public law outside of (and separate from) the State. 

Faculty: Daniela Mesquita Leutchuk de Cademartori, Daniel Silva Achutti , Germano André Doederlein Schwartz, Marco Félix Jobim, Marcos Jorge Catalan, Paula Pinhal de Carlos, Renata Almeida da Costa.

Projects connected to the Line of Research: Click here for project abstracts

Topics addressed:

- The Effectiveness and Fragmentation of Law in Contemporary Society: juridicization of social spheres and multiple legal contexts;

- Impacts and legitimacy of court decisions;

- Production of crime, law and society: dogmatic and empirical eyes on the culture of fear and the urban space;

- Alternative, guarantist, labeled: the history of humanist judges in RS.

- Adoption by Homosexuals and Same-Sex Parenting Legitimized by the judicial branch

- Making cracks in the walls of the society of the spectacle;

- Criminal Justice and Restorative Justice: criminalization processes and analysis of the mechanisms to manage criminal conflicts;

- Building Participatory Citizenship in the Constitutional Democracy and the Discussion about Justice.