39 See Bjarne Kvam, ‘Communication and technology as Agents of Legal Change’, in Jørn part ii • legal cultures • jørn øyrehagen sunde doing legal historical research, the model can see which factors in Norwegian law drove it and which restrained it. The legal cultural model can be read horizontally for a legal cultural analysis of contemporary law, whether comparative or not (Fig. 9.1); however, the legal cultural model can also be read vertically for a legal cultural analysis of legal history, whether comparative or not (Fig. 9.2). Even if we identify the crucial components in a legal culture needed for a legal cultural analysis, we will still have to explain how the ideas and expectations of, for example, conflict resolution are shaped? How, for example, is the idea of judicial review so strong that it is hardly ever questioned in public debate? We have seen that legal culture is multileveled, overlapping, and occasionally random, and that insignificant factors can at times play a significant role. In short, legal culture can be complex. When things are not clear-cut and everything is connected to everything else, where to start your investigation? The best place is with the interactions where ideas and expectations of the law are shaped. There aremany definitions of culture. For our purposes, it is sufficient to state that culture is a product of human interaction, and it is through interaction in different social settings that shared ideas and expectations emerge. This is how a common understanding of how to structure sentences, grammar, and words and phrases is created, upheld, changed, and finally lost. This is also what governs the life cycle of conflict resolution and norm production, of ideas of justice, legal methods, degree of professionalization, and internationalization. Interaction in this context should be understood more as communication, since it includes information transfers, and is not dependant on people actually being in the same place, simultaneously observing and participating in the same events.39 The shared ideas and expectations of the law are strongest between those who interact most often, and weaken with interaction until they are 136 The interactions that shape a legal culture
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