THE LEGAL CULTURES OF EUROPE

Sociolegal scholars have become increasingly interested in comparative legal cultures, largely under the hypotheses that what people think a bout the law and the values embedded therein has something to do with how they behave and, ultimately, some consequences for the larger poli tical and legal systems. For instance, attitudes toward the rule of la w no doubt influence (though they do not determine) people's willingne ss to comply with laws. Most agree that one cannot understand the role of law in society without understanding something of legal cultures. We present an investigation into the legal cultures of the countries o f the European Union. Drawing on mass surveys conducted within each of the countries (including a separate sample in East Germany), we explo re popular attitudes toward various dimensions of law: support for the rule of law; perceptions that law is a nonneutral, repressive force; and support for individual liberty. Although our analysis focuses on n ational differences, we also explore within-system variation (e.g., ac ross various socioeconomic strata). Ultimately, our purpose is to docu ment cross-national differences in legal cultures and to rake some ten tative steps toward explaining the origins of these differences.