Legal influence: theoretical and legal study

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the mechanism of legal influence on public life, consciousness and behavior of people. The author emphasizes that legal influence is a complex, sophisticated phenomenon which reveals the entire process of law's effect in its diversity and unity. The author emphasizes that all social relations are subject to legal influence, including those which are not directly regulated by Law. And in this sense, legal influence should be viewed not as the effect of a system of rules, but as the realization of the idea of law, its "spirit". It is argued that the concept of legal influence can be distinguished into an independent scientific category only under the natural law approach to understanding law, i.e., on the basis of distinguishing between the concepts of law and legislation.

The article also examines the correlation between the concepts of legal influence and legal regulation. The author presents different views of academic researchers. Their generalization gives rise to the conclusion that law has not only a purely legal impact on social relations, but also acts on them as a psychological, ideological, informational, value-oriented and motivational factor.

Based on the carried out generalizations, the author formulates the relevant conclusions which made it possible to define the concept of the mechanism of legal influence as a complex socio-legal phenomenon which includes both legal (including legal) and non-legal (moral, ideological, psychological, informational, etc.) means of influence on society, both individual and collective subjects of social relations.