Legal pluralism as a field of sociolegal study emerged with clarity in the second half of the twentieth century, but its theoretical roots extend back much further.
Max Weber, for example, recognized that the exercise of what he called “legal coercion” was not the “monopoly of the political community” but was distributed more widely among a variety of social actors who were prepared to enforce physical or psychological sanctions in particular situations (Weber 1978:17).
Scholars of Asian law adopted early versions of a legal pluralism framework during the colonial era, most notably in Indonesia, where von Vollenhoven and others in the so-called Adat School attempted to document and analyze non-state legal orders rooted in Islam and in villagelevel custom. Similarly, Leopold Pospisil (1958), conducting fieldwork in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s, emphasized the importance of observing and analyzing the multiple “legal levels” that can be found in any society.In East Asia, shortly after the end of World War II, Masaji Chiba initiated an influential effort to develop the concept of legal pluralism with reference to Japanese law and society. Noting that the postwar Showa legal system claimed exclusive authority and denied recognition of premodern, customary, patriarchal, and sacred laws, Chiba nevertheless insisted that the sociological realities of Japanese legal culture did not match the ideology of its modern legal structure. He observed (Chiba 2002:46) that, “Among the real structure of the Japanese state law, there are various indigenous laws existing whether officially or unofficially.” Chiba's fieldwork in mid-century Japan documented legal pluralism, for example, with reference to the continuing significance of “shrine communities” and of iemoto laws - traditional family-like norms and structures found in numerous Japanese social groupings and organizations, including large corporations and even criminal societies (Chiba 2002:49-53). Chiba's work in East Asia reinforced scholarly efforts in Southeast Asia - and in other world regions - leading to a surge of interest in the theory of legal pluralism and in fieldwork projects designed to document the coexistence of official and unofficial laws in many Asian societies.