Making Family Law

The legislative process is complex, encompassing a variety of aims and outcomes. Some norms and rules are embodied in law because citizens are simply expected by the government to follow them. Others are there for entirely different reasons. A legislator may wish to send messages about what constitutes desirable behavior, or to demonstrate government's ability to deal with a local and short term issue, or to distract the electorate from other crises. Law is often, though not always, designed as a means to an end. Taking a sociological and empirically-based approach, this book offers a rare insight into the real processes by which law makers attempt to influence (or fail to influence) human behavior. For the UK, this account of the legislative process in Westminster rests on observations and discussions with key players, from the standpoint of an academic adviser on research to the department responsible for family law making. Documenting the little understood processes which occur in Whitehall - and in particular how ministers, advisers, and officials work together - the book reveals a quite different picture from that of the rational law maker imagined in textbooks.

Mavis Maclean is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Social Work and Intervention, a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law, and co-director of the Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy, University of Oxford.Jacek Kurczewski is a Professor at the University of Warsaw.