s Talcott Parsons and Jrgen Habermas have argued (see Parsons 1962, 1978; Habermas 1987, 1992; see Deflem 1997), law is a field of society which is not without relation to other social processes and institutions. Unlike Niklas Luhmanns conception of law as an autopoeitic, i.e. self-referential and closed, system (see Luhmann 1989, 1992), both scholars rightly indicate how the boundaries of law are transgressed in various ways, in the case of music censorship perhaps most remarkably by law enforcement officials. Emphasizing a presumed effectiveness of law to integrate behavior and solve conflicts can perhaps justify its operation but can surely not clarify what law is and does. After all, while political and social movement actions, legislation and court rulings, and law enforcement activities do determine the contours of music censorship, they do not have an over-all determing impact on expression. Yet, I argue that law should be seen to reflect the mediated outcome of struggles and conflicts, expressed by a plurality of lifeworlds, over the boundaries of what is right. My analysis on the nexus between law, law enforcement and social movement mobilization in the case of music censorship indicates the formation of sometimes unexpected alliances and the emergence of cracks and conflicts within groups that are usually thought off to represent one cause. These processes influence the effectiveness of movements appeal to law enforcement and law (as matters of access to justice). Ironically, law thereby not only constitutes the rules that regulate these conflicts, it also provides the avenues to challenge those rules themselves whenever cultural values are claimed not to be represented by law. Law, law enforcement and the legal debate on music do not take place in a vacuum, the case of the legal control of musical expressions also demonstrates that law is never a final outcome of a combination of legal and extra-legal processes, and neither d...
