The social role of law came to the forefront of scholarly discussions outside American-European jurisprudence during the first wave of international development in the 1960s. Western development assistance programs to the governments and legal institutions in developing countries led to active law and development studies that were built upon the Weberian foundation that economic development was the result of rational legal systems. Scholar-reformers, comparative legal theorists, legal anthropologists and social scientists began to study the role of law in development, and the rule-of-law governance model was promoted as a path to freedom for the recipient countries. However, the law and development movement faded into "self-estrangement" because of critical scrutiny of the social utility of aid efforts and the disagreement over the common interests that might justify such a distinct field of inquiry.
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