As an institution of society, law regulates social interaction, thus minimizing overt and covert conflict. In order to perform this function a legal system must solve four problems: legitimation of rules, interpretation of rules, application of sanctions, and determination of jurisdiction. How it does so is largely a function of its relation to other institutions of society. The analysis of the manner in which a legal system solves these problems, we suggest, may provide a fruitful basis for the comparative study of legal systems.
A crucial problem posed by this mode of analysis is the relation between one institution and any other institution within the social structure of a society. Law is a unique type of institution in that its complex of norms and organizational structures cross-cuts all other institutions in a society. The degree to which the structure of law is a function of any one institution or combination of institutions, on the one hand, and an instrument of change in other institutions, on the other hand, is still inadequately understood.
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