Beyond the pedagogical beauty of dichotomy: Comparative law methodology in liquid times

This chapter describes the issue of comparative law methodology notably in the way it has been traditionally proposed as a choice between functionalist or contextualist methods. A dichotomous approach is arguably fascinating and effective from a pedagogical viewpoint. The chapter argues that comparative law appears deeply anchored to a dichotomous mindset that tends to reduce any scenario into a contrast between two options: irreducible and often conflicting alternatives. Comparative law as a sub-discipline has been moving 'from a relatively marginal role to a much more central role', shifting from being considered as the 'Cindarella' to the 'Queen' of legal sciences. There are two main re-thinking exercises that comparative lawyers are deepening in order to globalize their discipline: geographical and thematic. William Twining has described comparative law as a 'long-running and unsatisfactory debate about how major systems, tradition, or families of law should be classified'.