Russell Sandberg (University of Wales System – Cardiff Law School) has posted The Sociology of the Law and Religion. The abstract follows.

This is the English language version of a piece which is published in Italian in Dizionario del sapere storico-religioso del Novecento, edited by Alberto Melloni, by Il Mulino (Bologna, 2010). It provides a definition of ‘the sociology of the law on religion’. This can be understood as a discipline which studies the interaction between law, religion and society. The paper assesses the extent to which this discipline exists. It looks at law and religion scholars such as Doe and Bradney who have made reference to sociology and sociologists of religion such as Davie and Beckford who have made reference to law. The author has further developed his analysis of the interaction between law and religion and the sociology of religion in his doctoral thesis and will return to the subject in a forthcoming monograph for Cambridge University Press.