The Blind Men and the Elephant: An Empirical Analysis of the Social Sciences in International Law

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

What is the role of the social sciences in international law? This article maps how international law interacts with the social sciences, including its concepts, findings, methods, and epistemologies. It provides a first encompassing genealogy of social science references in six renowned international law journals, including the American, Asian, European, Leiden, and Nordic Journal of International Law as well as the British International and Comparative Law Quarterly, by using a corpus linguistic approach that encompasses more than 15,000 documents from 1907 to 2022. Moreover, it explores how structural factors related to the institutionalization and funding of certain strands of social science-inspired international law scholarship have influenced regional and temporal patterns in Europe, Germany, and Australia.
Original languageEnglish
JournalNordic Journal of International Law
Volume93
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)11-37
ISSN0902-7351
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

ID: 372620471