Nomos (sociology)

In sociology, nomos refers to provisional codes (habits or customs) of social and political behavior, socially constructed and historically (even geographically) specific. The term derives from the Greek νόμος, and it refers not only to explicit laws but to all of the normal rules and forms people take for granted in their day-to-day activities. Nomos stands for order, valid and binding on those who fall under its jurisdiction; thus it is a social construct with ethical dimensions. It is a belief, opinion or point of view; it is a human invention.

Carl Schmitt began using the term in his 1934 publication "On the Three Types of Juristic Thought" to denote the "concrete order" of a people, before extending its use into his 1950 book "The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum".

After Schmitt, the next influential writer to use the term in a modern context is Peter L. Berger. Berger writes of human beings fashioning a world by their own activity (1967:5). Berger sees this taking place through a continual threefold cycle between individuals and society: externalisation, objectivation and internalization. The world thus fashioned has an order—a set of principles—which comes to be read onto society by individuals through externalisation and objectivation, and also internalised in each individual. This order thus comes to be assumed, spoken of, and placed into social discourse to be treated as common sense. This ordering of the world and experience, which is a corporate and social process as well as an individual one, is a nomos.

Berger writes of 'The socially established nomos' being understood 'as a shield against terror. Put differently, the most important function of society is nomization.' (1967:22). We all need that structuring nomos; it provides us with stability, predictability, a frame of reference in which to live. The alternative is the chaos and terror of what Berger calls anomy.

To be most effective, the nomos must be taken for granted. The structure of the world created by human and social activity is treated not as contingent, but as self-evident. 'Whenever the socially established nomos attains the quality of being taken for granted, there occurs a merging of its meanings with what are considered to be the fundamental meanings inherent in the universe.' (1967:24-25). Berger sees this happening in all societies, and while the nomos is expressed in religious terms in 'archaic societies', 'In contemporary society, this archaic cosmization of the social world is likely to take the form of "scientific" propositions about the nature of men rather than the nature of the universe.' (1967:25).

So this process of world-construction is not necessarily religious, but its expression has most often been religious. Later Berger explores the part religious belief has played in nomoi: providing a connection with the cosmic—seeking to provide a completeness to that religious world-view.

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