Stagnated, on the Verge of Breakthrough, or Both? The State of Big Theories of Legal Phenomena

Abstract Socio-legal studies has grown rapidly over the last six decades. As the field has expanded, however, it seems the pace of field-defining research (most notably, high-quality theoretical work, especially with aspirations toward grand or general theorizing) has waned, and a regime of normal science currently dominates. For some scholars, this state of affairs gives the impression of treading water, an incoherent field, or even theoretical stagnation. Using the subfield of punishment and society as a case study, we argue that the field suffers from a kind of stalled academic dialecticism. We argue that various factors have worked together to impede a standard dialectical process of theoretical growth by dissuading scholars from moving onto a new stage of innovative research and incentivizing them to continue to pursue smaller-scale, less innovative studies. However, precisely because the field has a rich, diverse array of scholarship available to glean, synthesize, and use to make next-generation insights, the field is poised for breakthrough research—particularly, generalizable theories of legal phenomena—if only scholars are willing to pursue them.