Social changes that occur in a society can occur due to several reasons. These causes are internal (originating from the community), and external (outside the community). There are also factors that facilitate change when one community comes into contact with another community or one that has an advanced education system, there are also inhibiting factors such as community attitudes that exaggerate the past (traditionalism). The channel through which a process of social change is a social institution. Good social change should be balanced with good educational patterns or forms of education. So that the mindset of the community can be formed properly and produce future generations who are able to think for the future.


In the process of legal change in general, there are three bodies that can change the law, namely the legal formation body, the law enforcement agency, and the law enforcement body. If the law has to change to suit the needs of the community, then these changes do not only depend on a body alone. Social change and legal change do not always take place together. This means that in certain circumstances the development of law may be left behind by the development of other elements of society and its culture or maybe the opposite is happening. 

The function of law in influencing social change includes:

  1. Law as a tool to change society. Agent of change is a person or group of people who get the trust of the community as the leader of one or more social institutions. A desired or planned social change is always under the control and supervision of the pioneer of the change. The law functions indirectly in a planned social change, the outcome depends on the vanguard of change, if the effectiveness of investment (positive results from the use of human labor, tools, organization, and methods used) is large and the opposing force of the community is small, the process institutionalization is smooth.

  2. Law as a means of regulating behavior. As a means of social engineering law is a sara intended to change the behavior of citizens, in accordance with predetermined objectives. Humans have a normative structure in themselves which is at once a potential in him to be able to change his behavior, through planned changes in the form of using the rule of law as a means. The principal in the process of changing behavior through the rule of law is the conception of the rules, roles, means and ways to work for conformity. The role holder is a legal subject while the role is a right and obligation related to legal interests. The role of the holder is a legal event that can be in accordance with or against it. So the rule of law is the role expectation (of the pioneer) of the role of the occupant in the process of social engineering.