על המחקר המשפטי האינטגרטיבי

תקציר

In the past few decades legal scholarship in North America and in Israel has undergone a process of fragmentation. This is primarily due to the flourishing of interdisciplinary (or cross-disciplinary) studies, which differ in their basic assumptions, paradigms, methodologies, goals, and jargon. The compartmentalization of legal scholarship and the creation of separate communities of legal scholars adversely affect the contribution of interdisciplinary scholars to legal theory and to the development of the law. The article calls for integration of different interdisciplinary studies and of interdisciplinary studies and traditional, doctrinal analysis. The article characterizes several types of integrative legal studies, and examines the advantages, disadvantages, and concerns raised by such integration. Inter alia it highlights the potential contribution of integrative research to the non-legal disciplines on which the interdisciplinary studies draw, and to the advancement of law and legal theory.