The fragmentation of legal theory as an epistemic community: structures, patterns, trends

How is the global epistemic community of legal philosophers structured or patterned? How and why is the epistemic community of legal theorists unified/divided? What are the lines of division that generate exclusion/inclusion, centre/periphery?

If the epistemic community is fragmented, to what extent is this related to 

•          Prestige of various universities and neglect of others?

•          Gender, race and other identity criteria?

•          Master/disciple relationships?

•          Geographical and language issues?

•          Law being local/particular?

•          Different schools and styles of philosophising?

•          Old divisions of naturalism/positivism?

•          Political ideologies such as mainstream (conservative or progressive) vs critical (radical)? 

In other words, are the nodes in the network clustered around: universities, journals, charismatic figures, shared methodological assumptions, political ideology, language, or some other factors?

And how has this changed over time, say in the last 20 or 50 years?

This special workshop of the IVR2022 world congress will address some of these questions. There is a separate CfP for contributions.

It is suggested that after the special workshop, interested participants work on a collaborative research project to explore these questions about the culture and organisation of legal theory as an epistemic community, both analytically and empirically, through conceptual work as well as qualitative and quantitative methods. This may include drafting and submitting joint applications for external funding. Therefore, at the special workshop itself we will dedicate time to brainstorming on how to design such a research project.