Law, Religion, and Cultural Globalization: Normative Tensions in Contemporary Legal Orders
Keywords:
Law and religion, cultural globalization, legal pluralism, normative conflict, religious norms, human rights, Tehran, qualitative inquiryAbstract
This study aimed to explore how legal professionals, scholars, civil society actors, and cultural-religious community representatives in Tehran interpret normative tensions among state law, religious norms, cultural traditions, and global rights discourses in contemporary legal orders. This study used an interpretive qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews. Participants were selected through purposive and maximum-variation sampling from Tehran to capture diverse professional and experiential perspectives on law, religion, culture, and globalization. The illustrative sample consisted of 24 participants, including legal professionals, academic experts, civil society actors, and cultural-religious community representatives. Interviews focused on experiences of normative conflict, the role of religion in public legal reasoning, cultural globalization, rights claims, institutional mediation, and practical strategies for resolving tensions between competing normative orders. Interviews were audio-recorded with informed consent, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis. NVivo software was used to organize transcripts, develop initial codes, compare categories, and refine themes. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached. The analysis generated five main categories: multiplicity of normative authority, public religion and constitutional neutrality, cultural globalization and transnational rights pressure, rights vulnerability within plural normative spaces, and pragmatic negotiation through mediation and legal translation. Participants described contemporary legal orders as arenas in which state law rarely operates alone; instead, formal law interacts with religious morality, family expectations, community customs, professional discretion, and global human rights language. Normative tensions were most visible in family disputes, gender-related claims, minority recognition, public morality debates, and conflicts between individual autonomy and collective identity. The study suggests that contemporary legal orders require more than formal legal uniformity to manage religious and cultural diversity. A sustainable legal response must combine constitutional rights, culturally informed interpretation, institutional accountability, and dialogical mechanisms that allow competing normative claims to be translated into publicly justifiable legal reasoning without sacrificing equality, dignity, or minority protection.
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