Abstract
While not all legal scholarship fits in a so-called legal paradigm, a specific approach to discretion is still occasionally attributed to legal scholarship as such. Particularly some socio-legal scholars are inclined to contrast it with their own approach to the study of discretion. After setting out the main characteristics of the legal paradigm, the chapter continues by illustrating that a socio-legal approach of discretion indeed complements the legal paradigm by rendering visible the variable ways in which discretion is used in practice which research that fits in the legal paradigm cannot. The illustration is based on a case study of judges’ use of sentencing discretion in lower courts. Subsequently, it is argued that contrasting the legal paradigm with a socio-legal approach may come at a cost. Differences between a legal and a socio-legal approach to the study of discretion may be overstated while commonalities may be missed.
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Notes
- 1.
A possibly less known but equally useful theoretical framework is advanced by Wagenaar (2004; see also Chap. 17 of this volume). His focus is on the social micromechanics of work to explain how administrative workers negotiate practical problems in the context of a large, complex bureaucracy. Specifically, he discusses four issues that, taken together, outline a useful theory of administrative practice: situatedness (work always takes place in a context that influences how it is understood and carried out), knowing (the application of knowledge in the carrying out of work tasks), action (the prime vehicle for negotiating the world) and interaction (the centrality of interaction for work). He attributes a central role to practical judgement as the sense-making activity that binds the other elements of a theory of practice into a meaningful whole.
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Mascini, P. (2020). Discretion from a Legal Perspective. In: Evans, T., Hupe, P. (eds) Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19566-3_9
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