All of the authors have participated in recent years in meetings held under the auspices of the International Sociological Association, in particular those organized by the Research Committee on the Study of Deviance and Social Control, and to a lesser extent by the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law. All papers were edited and revised or updated during the years 1993-95. An overview paper illustrates a new theoretical approach to law creation by focusing on the field of labor law where the "just cause" principle that protects employees in termination, developed through non-state private arbitration decisions, has begun to enter into statutory law. Four papers on historical and theoretical studies consider coercive, bureaucratic, and economic strategies in 16th-century Spain; social control in a segmented society (The Netherlands during the 19th and first half of the 20th century); women, crime, and the state; and the study of police crime. Three papers on social control in post-socialist societies focus on access to justice and the legal transition in the former Soviet state (formal and informal justice) and law in Poland in the transition from communism to democracy. Four papers on penal, welfare, and psychiatric control consider these issues in the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan. The five papers on community social control encompass both a general conceptual level and the application of community control to particular societies such as Norway, Nigeria, and the Israeli kibbutz. References accompany each paper.