Comparative Methodology and Pluralism in Legal Comparison in a Global Age

This article grew to look deeper into the relationship between different methodological tools in comparative law enquiries. There are several factors that currently affect these enquiries, such as the emergence of new spheres of normativity and transnational actors determining a new configuration of the relationship between centre and periphery. Different forms and visions of legal pluralism could characterise a cultural tradition and different ways, in which existing nations, which have a pluralistic legal system, interact. Furthermore, one might add the consideration that the presence of different forms of pluralism—a pluralism of pluralisms—implies a constant and urgent need to reconsider the adequacy of the methodologies in comparative law. Hence, we can use different approaches because there are different purposes that the comparison pursues. Though the horizontal comparison is certainly a widespread tendency for comparative analyses, from a methodological point of view, we need to consider the importance of forms of vertical comparison, both a top-down and bottom-up approach.