On the Concept of Relative Autonomy in National Legal Researches

Abstract

The main argument of this paper is that the renewal of some national legal researches has been allowed thanks to the concept of relative autonomy of law, as an overcome of paradigms of normativism and law as an epiphenomenon of social and economic relations. With the bibliographic revision of the most outstanding academic works in faculties of law of the country, we proceeded to an approach to the concepts produced there, establishing their points of encounter and divergence. According to these works the notion of relative autonomy has involved two meanings: first, law is a field, the outcome of interpretative, political and ideological variations (internal dimension). Second, law has a fundamental role in shaping social relations (external dimension). Finally, the idea of relative autonomy poses a kind of questions about the political usages of law, emerging that emerges from the necessity to reflect on its emancipatory ability as perpetuation of inequality and exclusion.