Bétaille, Julien (2025) From Doctrine to Data: Towards an Empirical Turn in European Legal Scholarship? European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol.2 (n°1). pp. 1-13.

Text Restricted Registered users only until 1 March 2026. Download (310kB)

Abstract

Empirical Legal Research (ELR) can be defined as the systematic collec-tion and analysis of data on legal phenomenon, in a way that is verifia-ble, reproducible and falsifiable. Europe is a good case to study the de-velopment of ELR, notably given the long tradition of unity in legal scholarship. Of course, this tradition is that of doctrinal scholarship but, at the turn of the 20th century, it was partially challenged by the emer-gence of new social sciences. Nowadays, ELR implicitly challenges the division of labour that resulted from this period, by using social science methods to grasp legal objects. It thus challenges normativist dogma and goes beyond legal realism. If there were any doubt about that, ELR can be considered “legal” research, notably because, at least in some cases, its object is purely legal. However, this does not mean that ELR answers the same questions as doctrinal approaches. Although ELR seems to be developing in Europe, some countries are lagging behind, for example France where interest in ELR has only been growing in re-cent years. At the European level, signs of growth are more tangible. This raises questions regarding the structuring of this field of research. This special issue aims to answer them.