ABSTRACT
The aim of the present chapter is to enquire about the relationship between ideology and private law, with particular reference to the historical dimension of private law. From a methodological perspective, the present paper should be seen as a metamethodological intervention, grounded in critical legal theory, aimed at proposing certain broad research questions at the interstices of legal history and critical legal theory. The main argument advanced in the chapter is that the questions suggested by critical legal theory could be extremely relevant and topical for research on legal historians, and could help enlarge the scope of their enquiry beyond the traditional scope of research. Specifically, the chapter will put forward a certain typology of the ideological entanglements of private law (positing the categories of extra-juridical ideology, juridical ideology and legal ideology), and will argue that any analysis of the ideological dynamics of private law should ideally entail taking into account all three types of ideologies which interact with private law, focusing on all possible vectors of influence in a broad social, political and economic context.
Mańko, Rafał, Towards an Ideological History of Private Law or What Legal History Can Gain from Critical Legal Theory (January 6, 2025).
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