bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“Put Me in Coach… I'm Better Than You Think I Am!” Coaches' Perceptions of Their Expectations in Youth Sport
Authors: Wilson Marcia A. , Cushion Christopher J. , Stephens Dawn E.
Published: June 2006

The purpose of the present study was to examine coaches' perception of high and low expectancy athletes' ability and effort expenditure over one half of a season. An additional aim was to examine the direction of any perceived changes in high and low expectancy athletes. Data were collected from 25 coaches based on interactions with 200 athletes using Darley and Fazio's (1980) Expectancy Confirmation process as a theoretical framework. Coaches reported limited flexibility in their perceptions of high and low expectancy athletes. Furthermore, coaches perceived that high expectancy athletes generally exceeded their expectations whereas their low expectancy counterparts either failed to meet their expectations or remained constant after a four-month period. Implications are discussed in terms of differential treatment according to expectancy status, athletic progression and continued participation in sport.
The "We-Win-Even-When-We-Lose" Syndrome: U.S. Press Coverage of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the "Fall of Saigon"
Authors: Espiritu Yen Le
Published: June 2006

Through analyses of U.S. press coverage of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, this article examines how U.S. popular culture has dealt with the "difficult memory" of the Vietnam War, a war that left the United States as neither victor nor liberator. As a morally controversial and unsuccessful war, the Vietnam War appears to offer an antidote to the prominent "rescue and liberation" narratives of World War II. However, instead of using the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary to critically analyze and assess the reasons for and ongoing consequences of the war, U.S. print media have opted to present an ahistorical account of America(ns) rescuing and caring for Vietnam's "runaways" that erases the role that U.S. interventionist foreign policy and war played in inducing this forced migration in the first place. Many American studies scholars have detailed how the recuperation of the Vietnam veterans has been central to the ongoing renovation of U.S. mythic innocence, this article extends this discussion by showing how popular narratives of Vietnamese refugees have also been deployed to rescue the Vietnam War for Americans. Although routinely forgotten in most U.S. public discussions and commemorations of the Vietnam War, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese refugees became the featured evidence of the appropriateness and even necessity of U.S. world hegemony. The refugees—constructed as successful and anti-communist—recuperated the veterans' and thus U.S. failure of masculinity and re-made the case for U.S. war in Viet Nam: that the war, no matter the costs, was ultimately necessary, moral, and successful. The article concludes that it is this "we-win-even-when-we-lose" syndrome that has energized and emboldened the perpetuation of U.S. militarism around the world in the post-Cold War era.
Is There an Environmental Kuznets Curve for the Risk of Biodiversity Loss?
Authors: Majumder Pallab , Berrens Robert P , Bohara Alok K
Published: June 2006

We investigate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for the cross-country relationship between per capita income and the overall risk of biodiversity loss. Relative to several recent EKC studies on biodiversity, use of a multivariate index that considers species, genetic and ecosystem diversity is a better indicator of biodiversity risk than simply the number or percentage change of any particular species category (e.g. plants, birds and mammals). Using several variants of the multivariate National Biodiversity Risk Assessment Index (NBRAI), we find no evidence in support of an EKC relationship.
The Ethical Limits in Expanding Living Donor Transplantation
Authors: Ross Lainie Friedman
Published: June 2006

The past decade has witnessed the emergence of novel methods to increase the number of living donors. Although such programs are not likely to yield high volumes of organs, some transplant centers have gone to great lengths to establish one or more of them. I discuss some of the ethical and policy issues raised by five such programs: (1) living-paired and cascade exchanges; (2) unbalanced living-paired exchanges; (3) list-paired exchanges; (4) nondirected donors; and (5) nondirected donors catalyzing cascade exchanges. I argue that living-paired and cascade exchanges are ethically sound, but will lead to only a few additional transplants. Unbalanced exchanges and list-paired exchanges raise ethical issues that should limit their permissibility. Nondirected donations can be ethically sound with adherence to strict eligibility criteria and fair allocation procedures. Nondirected donors catalyzing cascade exchanges can be ethically sound provided that individuals with blood types O and B are not made worse off.
Position Effect on the Directionality of Silencer Function in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Zou Yanfei , Yu Qun , Chiu Ya-Hui , Bi Xin
Published: June 2006

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, silencers flanking the HML and HMR loci initiate the establishment of transcriptional silencing. We demonstrate that the activity of a silencer pertaining to its potency and directionality is dependent on its genomic position. The context of the HML-E silencer is more permissive to silencer function than that of HML-I or HMR-E, despite that HML-E and HML-I are only 3.3 kb apart. The apparent strength and directionality of a silencer in a particular location is affected by other silencing elements (silencers and protosilencers) present in its context. We show that at the HML locus, at least four silencing elements engage in multiple functional interactions that contribute to the activities of the silencers. Notably, these dispersed silencing elements can synergize to silence genes located not only inside, but also outside the HML sequence that harbors them. Moreover, the relative positions and orientations of these elements are important for silencing, indicating that they belong to an intricate silencing network.
Different Mating-Type-Regulated Genes Affect the DNA Repair Defects of SaccharomycesRAD51,RAD52andRAD55Mutants
Authors: Valencia-Burton Maria , Oki Masaya , Johnson Jean , Seier Tracey A , Kamakaka Rohinton , Haber James E
Published: June 2006

Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells expressing both a- and α-mating-type (MAT) genes (termed mating-type heterozygosity) exhibit higher rates of spontaneous recombination and greater radiation resistance than cells expressing only MATa or MATα. MAT heterozygosity suppresses recombination defects of four mutations involved in homologous recombination: complete deletions of RAD55 or RAD57, an ATPase-defective Rad51 mutation (rad51-K191R), and a C-terminal truncation of Rad52, rad52-Δ327. We investigated the genetic basis of MAT-dependent suppression of these mutants by deleting genes whose expression is controlled by the Mata1-Matα2 repressor and scoring resistance to both campothecin (CPT) and phleomycin. Haploid rad55Δ strains became more damage resistant after deleting genes required for nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ), a process that is repressed in MATa/MATα cells. Surprisingly, NHEJ mutations do not suppress CPT sensitivity of rad51-K191R or rad52-Δ327. However, rad51-K191R is uniquely suppressed by deleting the RME1 gene encoding a repressor of meiosis or its coregulator SIN4; this effect is independent of the meiosis-specific homolog, Dmc1. Sensitivity of rad52-Δ327 to CPT was unexpectedly increased by the MATa/MATα-repressed gene YGL193C, emphasizing the complex ways in which MAT regulates homologous recombination. The rad52-Δ327 mutation is suppressed by deleting the prolyl isomerase Fpr3, which is not MAT regulated. rad55Δ is also suppressed by deletion of PST2 and/or YBR052C (RFS1, rad55 suppressor), two members of a three-gene family of flavodoxin-fold proteins that associate in a nonrandom fashion with chromatin. All three recombination-defective mutations are made more sensitive by deletions of Rad6 and of the histone deacetylases Rpd3 and Ume6, although these mutations are not themselves CPT or phleomycin sensitive.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mer2, Mei4 and Rec114 Form a Complex Required for Meiotic Double-Strand Break Formation
Authors: Li Jing , Hooker Gillian W , Roeder G Shirleen
Published: June 2006

In budding yeast, at least 10 proteins are required for formation of the double-strand breaks (DSBs) that initiate meiotic recombination. Spo11 is the enzyme responsible for cleaving DNA and is found in a complex that also contains Ski8, Rec102, and Rec104. The Mre11/Rad50/Xrs2 complex is required for both DSB formation and DSB processing. In this article we investigate the functions of the remaining three proteins—Mer2, Mei4, and Rec114—with particular emphasis on Mer2. The Mer2 protein is present in vegetative cells, but it increases in abundance and becomes phosphorylated specifically during meiotic prophase. Mer2 localizes to distinct foci on meiotic chromosomes, with foci maximally abundant prior to the formation of synaptonemal complex. If DSB formation is blocked (e.g., by a spo11 mutation), dephosphorylation of Mer2 and its dissociation from chromosomes are delayed. We have also found that the Mei4 and Rec114 proteins localize to foci on chromosomes and these foci partially colocalize with each other and with Mer2. Furthermore, the three proteins co-immunoprecipitate. Mer2 does not show significant colocalization with Mre11 or Rec102 and Mer2 does not co-immunoprecipitate with Rec102. We propose that Mer2, Mei4, and Rec114 form a distinct complex required for DSB formation.
Femicide and the Palestinian Criminal Justice System: Seeds of Change in the Context of State Building?
Authors: Shalhoub-Kevorkian Nadera
Published: June 2006

Despite the criminalization of abuses inflicted upon women, laws are still considered major sources of women's oppression. This article discusses how Palestinian society and its criminal justice system, during a politically formative period of state building, relates to “femicide.” Femicide in this study pertains to the murder of girls or women for allegedly committing “crimes of family honor.” Official statistics, Cassation Court rulings, and six documented cases were analyzed in depth to determine the role played by the penal code, the legal system, and the external sociocultural context in exonerating the perpetrator of femicide and placing the victim on trial. The data reflect a silent masculine conspiracy that empowers sexist and gender-biased legal policies. The article concludes by challenging Palestinian legislators to fight legal discrimination against women. It argues that state-building periods can be a “window of hope,” offering societies such as Palestine's the unique opportunity to reexamine and reconstruct their laws from a gender-sensitive position.
The Caged Melting Pot: Toward an Understanding of the Consequences of Desegregation in Prisons
Authors: Trulson Chad , Marquart James W.
Published: June 2006

This article tests the equal status contact hypothesis in the aftermath of desegregation in the Texas prison system. This study uses ten years of inmate-on-inmate assault data and compares the rates of violence among inmates racially integrated in a double cell versus inmates racially segregated in a double cell. The analysis revealed that violence between integrated inmates was not disproportionate to the level of violence between segregated inmates—in fact, it was lower. This article addresses the conditions under which positive racial group contact will likely be found in a prison setting and concludes with a discussion of implications.
Lovers, Legal Strangers, and Parents: Negotiating Parental and Sexual Identity in Family Law
Authors: Richman Kimberly
Published: June 2006

This is a study of meaning making and identity construction in child custody cases involving gay or lesbian parents. In it, I investigate the language of all such recorded decisions over the past 50 years, focusing on how judges—in interaction with the litigants before them—construct, negotiate, deny, and confirm the sexual and familial identities of the parents and would-be parents involved in these custody contests. Employing a constitutive framework and drawing on the social, scientific, and feminist literatures on sexuality, family, and law, I find that through multiple discursive processes, from self-representation to imposition to negotiation of new spaces of compromise, family law actors bring together sexual and familial statuses often treated as exclusive of each other.
The Policy Impact of Reapportionment
Authors: Hanson Roger A. , Crew Robert E.
Published: June 2006

A considerable amount of conflict has been generated over the selection of legal standards for legislative apportionment. Prior to 1962, seats in state legislatures were generally assigned to counties. In some houses of some state legislatures, a limited number of additional seats were given to the most populated districts. Population (size) was seldom used, however, either as the sole basis for designing districts or as the sole basis for determining the number of seats for given districts. With the development of the social force of urbanization, a limited number of counties became the residence for a majority of the citizens. Since state legislatures continued to operate with counties as the fundamental unit of legislative apportionment, significant differences in the population of districts were created.
Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study
Authors: Moore Sally Falk
Published: June 2006

In our highly centralized political system, with its advanced technology and communications apparatus, it is tempting to think that legal innovation can effect social change. Roscoe Pound perceived the law as a tool for social engineering (1965: 247–252). Some version of this idea is the current rationale for most legislation. Underlying the social engineering view is the assumption that social arrangements are susceptible to conscious human control, and that the instrument by means of which this control is to be achieved is the law. In such formulations “the law” is a short term for a very complex aggregation of principles, norms, ideas, rules, practices, and the activities of agencies of legislation, administration, adjudication and enforcement, backed by political power and legitimacy. The complex “law,” thus condensed into one term, is abstracted from the social context in which it exists, and is spoken of as if it were an entity capable of controlling that context. But the contrary can also be persuasively argued: that “it is society that controls law and not the reverse …” (Cochrane, 1971: 93–4). This semantic morass is partly the result of the multiplicity of referents of the terms “law” and “society.” But both ways of describing the state of affairs have the same implication for the sociological study of law. Law and the social context in which it operates must be inspected together. As Selznick has said, there is no longer any need “to argue the general interdependence of law and society” (1959: 115). Yet although everyone acknowledges that the enforceable rules stated and restated in legal institutions, in legislatures, courts and administrative agencies, also have a place in ordinary social life (Bohannan, 1965), that normal locus is where they are least studied. (See, for example, the emphasis on the study of official behavior in the recent Chambliss and Seidman, 1971, and on dispute settlement in much of the recent anthropological literature, cf., Moore, 1969. A significant exception is the emphasis on “law-in-society” in Friedman and Macaulay, 1969.)
Studying the Frequency of Civil Litigation in Germany
Authors: Blankenburg Erhard
Published: June 2006

Little is known about the factors influencing the frequency of civil litigation. Courts do not seek their clientele actively. Rather, they wait for litigants to bring cases to them. The determinants of litigation thus have to be sought primarily outside the courts: they have to be sought by analysis of the frequency of all conflicts which are relevant to legal regulation. Conflict of itself does not produce a civil suit: there has to be some initiative to bring the issue before the court. Although we do not know the total population of all law-relevant conflicts (that is, all conflicts which might possibly be regulated by law), we may safely assume that there is a selection process which sifts out all but a small proportion of all potential conflicts. Here, conditions within the courts (among others) enter: the more expeditiously civil suits are handled, the less costly, the more accessible courts are to lay people, the more readily they will take their issues to court.
Political Coerciveness and Turmoil
Authors: Feierabend Ivo K. , Nesvold Betty , Feierabend Rosalind L.
Published: June 2006

The central theme of this paper concerns the difficult question of whether the use of force, and, generally, the coercive character of a political regime stimulates or inhibits the occurrence of political strife and violence. More specifically, two questions are raised: First, what is the relationship between the degree of regime coerciveness and the amount of violence experienced within political systems? Second, in what way does the consistency or inconsistency with which force is applied affect internal political stability and turmoil?
A Tale of Two Courts: Litigation in Alameda and San Benito Counties
Authors: Friedman Lawrence M. , Percival Robert V.
Published: June 2006

American scholarship has lavished most of its attention on appellate courts, paying little attention to courts on the bottom rungs of the ladder. This is true of studies of both past and present courts. But the trial court is the court with the most direct contact with the man in the street, for both civil and criminal matters. Here he meets the law face-to-face. And, although federal courts are certainly important, state trial courts handle by far the larger volume of work.
The Neutralization of Severe Penalties: Some Traffic Law Studies
Authors: Ross H. Laurence
Published: June 2006

Between the formal law of statute books and appellate courts and the informal law of routine dispositions intervene a variety of actors, exemplified by policemen and insurance adjusters, some of whom have not traditionally been regarded as “legal” actors. However, one of the most important contributions of sociology to the understanding of law has been the demonstration that the attitudes and values of these actors and the pressures embodied in their roles produce a comprehensible divergence between the prescriptions of the formal law and the regularities exhibited in the informal law (Skolnick, 1966; Ross, 1970). This paper discusses some instances of discrepancy between the formal and informal law when formal penalties are suddenly and greatly increased. Its principal hypothesis is that sharp increases in formal penalties tend to be subverted by contrary adjustments in the behavior of those who apply the law. The data to be presented come from four of my studies on the effectiveness of changing traffic laws. As these studies were not designed to test the present hypothesis, their evidence is indirect, and the presentation is exploratory rather than demonstrative.
Political and Psychological Correlates of Conflict Management: A Cross-Cultural Study
Authors: Koch Klaus-Friedrich , Sodergren John A. , Campbell Susan
Published: June 2006

Conflict between individuals and between groups is a normal part of social life. The necessity of coping with disputes and emnity is universal, but societies differ in the ways they deal with conflict. Six basic modes of procedure of conflict management that fall into two major classes can be distinguished: triadic procedures; i.e., those in which the settlement of a dispute depends on the intervention of a third party (adjudication, arbitration, mediation) and dyadic procedures (negotiation, coercion, avoidance.). In the dyadic modes one or both principal parties must necessarily rely on self-help in processing a dispute, though possibly with the help of partisan supporters or representatives. Avoidance occurs when one principal withdraws from the conflict situation [“exit” in Hirschman's (1970) terminology]. By coercion, the threat or use of force, one principal imposes the outcome of a dispute and alone determines his concesssion, if any, to the opponent. Negotiation, once initiated by one of the principals, requires the cooperation of both parties and, if successful, leads to the settlement of a dispute by bilateral agreement.
The No Fee and Low Fee Legal Practice of Private Attorneys
Authors: Lochner Philip R.
Published: June 2006

For a half century or more it has been understood that the services of attorneys are not equally available to all who need them and a body of research has gradually been assembled which casts light on a number of factors relevant to how clients find attorneys and pay for their services. Among issues which have been probed are: the nature and extent of the public's need for legal services, the reasons for the failure of the poor to refer their problems to attorneys, the effect of OEO and legal aid offices on availability of legal services and the need for improved legal services for the middle class (Christensen, 1970). With few exceptions, however, the role of individual practicing attorneys in making legal services more widely available by occasionally working for a reduced fee, or for no fee at all, has never been systematically studied.
Deterrence: Some Theoretical Considerations
Authors: Geerken Michael R. , Gove Walter R.
Published: June 2006

During the first half of this century, most research on deterrence suggested that punishment had little effect on behavior. These findings tended to confirm the ideological position of most sociologists, who generally assumed that criminal behavior was not and probably could not be controlled by legal sanctions. However, recent developments indicate that this assumption is in error. First, laboratory research (e.g., Banduara, 1969:292-353; Bandua and Walters, 1963) has demonstrated that under certain conditions, punishment can effectively and efficiently control behavior, and that such control can be obtained through vicarious reinforcement. Second, and more important, research since 1960 by both economists and sociologists, generally more sophisticated than earlier work, suggests that legal sanctions often play a significant role in preventing criminal behavior. (See, for example, Chambliss, 1966; Gibbs, 1968; Tittle, 1969; Logan, 1972; Chiricos and Waldo, 1970; Tittle and Rowe, 1974; 1973; Jensen, 1969; Waldo and Chiricos, 1972; Phillips and Votey, 1972; Phillips, 1973). Thus the issue for future research is no longer whether legal sanctions ever deter criminal behavior, but the specification of the conditions under which they have such an effect. This paper seeks to develop some hypotheses to guide future research on these conditions.
A Note on Plea Bargaining and Case Pressure
Authors: Heumann Milton
Published: June 2006

The demise of the “upper court myth” (see Frank, 1969: 222-24) and the resultant realization of the importance of the “trial” court has spurred research into the dispositional processes of criminal courts. In the forefront of the results yielded by these efforts is a model of case disposition very different from the familiar Perry Mason courtroom interaction, a model predicated on negotiated dispositions rather than adversary combat, in short, a plea bargaining model.

Plea bargaining can be defined as the process by which the defendant relinquishes his right to go to trial in exchange for a reduction in charge and/or sentence. The pervasiveness of plea bargaining is suggested by the fact that roughly only 10% of all criminal cases go to trial.
Complainant Reactions to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination
Authors: Crowe Patricia Ward
Published: June 2006

This study examines the reactions of thirty complainants to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Complainant class is found to be the single most important explanatory factor; sex and race are not generally important when class is controlled. Higher class correlates with more idealistic motives for filing complaints, greater participation in and higher expectations about the process, better case outcomes, and a more negative evaluation of the Commission. No complainant obtained all the relief sought, but lower class complainants were generally happy with any favorable settlement, while higher class complainants were not. Complainants who seek to vindicate a principle, and therefore are less willing to compromise, find themselves in conflict with the pragmatic approach of most private attorneys (whose own economic interests may also be inconsistent with those of their clients) and with that of the MCAD (which adopts a generally pragmatic stance and prefers to conciliate rather than adjudicate, partly because it is so difficult and time consuming to prove discrimination based on unequal rather than unreasonable treatment). Symbolic and emotional factors determine complainant reactions more than case outcome.
Punishment and Social Organization: A Study of Durkheim's Theory of Penal Evolution
Authors: Spitzer Steven
Published: June 2006

For Émile Durkheim, crime and punishment were integral features of organized social life. He considered the study of crime and punishment essential to the sociological enterprise precisely because these “social facts” revealed the inner workings of society and the mechanism through which societies change. In The Rules of Sociological Method Durkheim argues (1938:70) that “crime is … necessary, it is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life,” and that “it is no longer possible … to dispute the fact that law and morality vary from one social type to the next, nor that they change within the same type if the conditions of life are modified.” Because he viewed law as a reflection of basic social arrangements, Durkheim grounded his theory of social change in an analysis of comparative legal types. He assumed (1933:68) that “since law reproduces the principal forms of social solidarity, we have only to classify the different types of law to find therefrom the different types of social solidarity which correspond to it.” In his central theoretical work, The Division of Labor in Society (1933), Durkheim linked the changing nature of legal controls (repressive to restitutive) to transformations in the nature of social solidarity (mechanical to organic).
The Limits of Economism in Controlling Harmful Corporate Conduct
Authors: Braithwaite John
Published: June 2006

Economism is seen as having a number of disadvantages compared with legalism as the preferred model for regulating hazardous industrial practices such as pollution. Economism forces public policy to react retrospectively to hazards when efforts could be made to prevent the hazard before it occurs. Economism engenders a moral relativism which weakens the moral force of law; it makes detection and deterrence more difficult than under legalism. The regulatory approaches of economism may involve reduced cost burdens on business but lesser predictability of those costs. Economism does not relieve business of the burdens of government inspections; it simply replaces technical inspectors with tax investigators because taxes on hazards can easily be evaded. Legalism, unlike economism, is not wedded to the assumption that business enterprises always behave rationally. In practical terms it is impossible to calculate economically optimal levels of taxes on social harm. Even if it were possible, the costs of making such calculations would be prohibitive. It is concluded that economistic strategies have quite limited, though important, roles in business regulation.
The Place of Law in the Marxian Structure-Superstructure Archetype
Authors: Stone Alan
Published: June 2006

Law occupies a critical place in a Marxist theory of society. Yet Marx and Engels did not provide a coherent and detailed discussion of law. Subsequent writers in the Marxist tradition have either developed simplistic versions of the unsustainable thesis that the capitalist class dominates the legal apparatus in a capitalist society, or they have virtually abandoned Marxism as a framework for analysis of the law. This paper examines leading texts of Marx and Engels and employs them to provide the outlines of a plausible Marxist theory of law that can embrace the rich complexity of legal activity in a modern capitalist society.
The Foundations of Parole in California
Authors: Messinger Sheldon L. , Berecochea John E. , Rauma David , Berk Richard A.
Published: June 2006

Parole was introduced in California, and used for over a decade, primarily to relieve governors of part of the burden of exercising clemency to reduce the excessive sentences of selected state prisoners. Later, when parole was additionally used to relieve prison crowding, processes were initiated that eventually led to the adoption of a rehabilitative justification for parole. We outline these events and their background and briefly consider their implications for the study of penal reforms.
American Lawyers in the 1980s: A Profession in Transition
Authors: Curran Barbara A.
Published: June 2006

The size of the lawyer population in the United States has increased dramatically in the last fifteen years. The rate of growth has substantially exceeded that of the general adult population. With the entry of a large number of young adults into the profession, an increasing proportion of whom are women, the age distribution of the profession has shifted downward and the representation of women among young lawyers has rapidly risen. The absolute number of lawyers working in each employment sector has increased significantly. Although the majority of lawyers continue to engage in the private practice of law, the proportion working in firm settings has grown as the proportion in solo practice has declined. Employment patterns of men and women continue to differ, with both younger and older women less likely to engage in private practice than men and more likely to be engaged in salaried employment. Moreover, even among private practitioners, differences persist as women continue to gravitate to solo practice or employment in large firms and remain under-represented in intermediate-sized firm practice.
The Legal Malaise; or, Justice Observed
Authors: Galanter Marc
Published: June 2006

During the twenty years since the founding of the Law and Society Association, a distinctive “law and society” discourse has emerged and been institutionalized in a multidisciplinary scholarly community, which has been instrumental in producing a tremendous increase in systematic knowledge about the law in action. The growth of law and society research has accompanied other changes in the distribution of information about the legal process, including a new legal journalism and greater media coverage that make the law in action more visible to a wider audience. Current distress of legal elites about the hypertrophy of legal institutions is viewed as a reaction to the increased currency of information that discredits the received picture of the legal world. The coincidence of structural changes in law with changes in the social institutions of knowledge about law creates the possibility of a more responsive and inquiring legal process.
Studying Disputes: Learning from the CLRP Experience
Authors: Kritzer Herbert M.
Published: June 2006

This paper describes the data collection strategy of the Civil Litigation Research Project. It discusses many of the practical problems of choosing and implementing the research design and assesses the results of the data collection effort.
Language, Audience, and the Transformation of Disputes
Authors: Mather Lynn , Yngvesson Barbara
Published: June 2006

This article develops an analytic framework for comparing dispute processing within a single institution and across different cultures, by focusing on the transformation of disputes. Case studies from diverse nonwestern and western settings are examined to show how disputes change as they are processed in response to the interests of various participants. Disputants, supporters, third parties, and relevant publics seek to rephrase and thus transform a dispute by imposing established categories for classifying events and relationships (narrowing), or by developing a framework which challenges established categories (expansion). Disputes may be expanded by adding new issues, by enlarging the arena of discussion, or by increasing the number and type of active participants. Thus, how the dispute is defined (language) and the roles played by various participants are critical features of the dispute. We focus on the agent of transformation, with special attention to the degree of audience participation, particularly in dispute expansion. We suggest the importance of expansion as a mechanism through which new rules emerge in the legal process, and through which social change is linked to legal change.
150 Years of Litigation and Dispute Settlement: A Court Tale
Authors: McIntosh Wayne
Published: June 2006

This article examines the behavior of civil litigants in a state general jurisdiction trial court over an extended period of time, 1820 to 1970. It focuses on whether the dispute resolution function of courts has diminished with social and economic development and rising litigation costs. The data consist of case records sampled at fifteen-year intervals. The samples are broken down into five case issues (domestic relations, torts, debts, nondebt contracts, and property) to determine the degree of change in the legal agenda. The rate of litigation (cases filed per 1000 population) is compared across issues, and disposition patterns over time are analyzed. The findings indicate that trial court processes have not totally converted to “rubber stamp” administration of routine petitions. Although the degree of judicial intervention into cases has changed, the court continues to play a significant role in the resolution of private conflicts.
Determinants of the Costs of Operating Large-Scale Prisons with Implications for the Cost of Correctional Standards
Authors: Trumbull William N. , Witte Ann D.
Published: June 2006

This paper explores the determinants of the costs of prisons. An economic model relates cost to output, input prices, and a number of variables controlling for differences in the type of outputs and inputs for each prison. Data from the federal prison system are used to estimate the model. Our results indicate that a minimum-cost prison would be quite large (1,000 to 1,600 inmates) and that the improvement of some correctional standards (e.g., single-bed cells, more living space) may serve to decrease rather than increase prison operating costs.
Presidential Effects on Criminal Justice Policy in the Lower Federal Courts: The Reagan Judges
Authors: Rowland C. K. , Songer Donald , Carp Robert A.
Published: June 2006

Scholarly and media accounts have portrayed the Reagan administration as strongly committed to the selection of judges who are ideologically in tune with the president. Interviews with key congressional participants indicate that Reagan has received substantial home-state support for his ideological selection criteria. These findings lead to the prediction that Reagan judges on the lower federal courts will be substantially less supportive of criminal defendants than will Nixon or Carter appointees. Analysis of each appointment cohort's criminal justice decisions confirms this expectation for the district courts and courts of appeals. Indeed, the degree of polarization between the Reagan and Carter cohorts is unprecedented. However, this difference was due to the unexpectedly high support for criminal defendants exhibited by Carter appointees as well as the predicted low support provided by Reagan judges.
Ecology and Culture in the Communication of Precedent Among State Supreme Courts, 1870-1970
Authors: Harris Peter
Published: June 2006

State supreme courts frequently cite each other as authorities. These citations constitute the interstate communication of precedent. The major direct predictors of this inter-court communication are the legal capital of the cited court, the difference in legislative innovativeness between the two states, and contemporaneous interstate migration. After 1940, inter-court communication is more strongly related to interstate migration than to any other predictor in the analysis. The relationship between interstate migration and inter-court communication suggests that the interstate communication of precedent is affected by cultural regionalism. Inter-court communication is not increased by similarity between states in population size or in levels of urbanization and industrialization. Courts of populous and urban states are cited more by courts of less populated and rural states, but these relationships are mediated by differences in legal capital, legislative innovativeness, judicial professionalism, and interstate migration. Judicial professionalism and the West's regional reporter system are directly related to inter-court communication in the later years surveyed.
Understanding Taxpaying Behavior: A Conceptual Framework with Implications for Research
Authors: Smith Kent W. , Kinsey Karyl A.
Published: June 2006

Taxpaying is a primary nexus between individual and state, and tax laws are exemplar of purposive administrative law. Our framework for research on taxpaying emphasizes that compliance is as problematic as noncompliance, that individuals have different opportunities for both compliance and noncompliance, and that taxpaying does not necessarily involve deliberate decisions. Both the process of decision making and the content of decisions must be studied. Four clusters of factors affecting the content of compliance decisions are material consequences, normative expectations, sociolegal attitudes and beliefs, and expressive factors. How individuals subjectively “frame” the factors depends upon their social situations. The framework has several implications for research on tax noncompliance.
Procedural Justice in Felony Cases
Authors: Casper Jonathan D. , Tyler Tom , Fisher Bonnie
Published: June 2006

Recent research on the determinants of litigant satisfaction has consistently found that abstract evaluations of the justness of case outcomes and of the fairness of the case disposition process contribute significantly to outcome satisfaction, independent of the favorability of the outcome itself. Most such findings have been produced either in laboratory settings using college student subjects or in survey research involving litigation in which the stakes are relatively small. As a consequence, skepticism has been expressed about whether procedural and distributive justice make a difference in serious civil or criminal cases. Reanalyzing data gathered in a previous panel study of defendants charged with felonies in three cities, we argue that the evidence suggests important effects for procedural and distributive fairness, even among a sample of litigants who share few attributes with college student populations and who are involved in litigation in which the stakes are high. The implications of these findings for case disposition processes such as plea bargaining and alternative dispute resolution techniques are discussed.
Communication of Appellate Decisions: A Multivariate Model for Understanding the Selection of Cases for Publication
Authors: Atkins Burton M.
Published: June 2006

Much of the judicial process literature assumes that appellate courts routinely publish all decisions they make. In fact, even with the proliferation of case law in the United States, since the 1970s many appeals court decisions have not been published. In England, however, selective publication of appellate decisions has always been an integral part of how courts interact with the broader legal and political system. This article explores some theoretical implications of selective reporting of appellate decisions within common law systems that rely on the published appellate ruling as a primary mechanism of communication between courts and the broader legal and political environments. The focus is on how appellate decisions are selected for publication, especially in the English Court of Appeal. The author proposes an empirical model that conceptualizes reporting as a communications process. He hypothesizes that the basis of selection can be viewed in the context of a cue theory that dichotomizes the communication of passive and dynamic cues between senders in the Court of Appeal and receivers within the community of law reporters.
Socioeconomic Development and the Evolution of Litigation Rates of Civil Courts in Belgium, 1835–1980
Authors: Van Loon F. , Langerwerf E.
Published: June 2006

This article tests the usefulness of some aspects of functional theory in explaining the relationship between socioeconomic development and litigation trends in Belgium for 1835–1980. Some of the six hypotheses derived from functional theory are supported by the data; others are clearly contradicted. The analysis indicates that litigation is obviously not an automatic response to conflict caused by socioeconomic change. Socioeconomic development is only one factor causing litigation, and its explanatory power is limited. Research progress can only be made by studying various kinds of conflict and types of actors, all trying to reach their specific goals in a given social context.
Courting Difference: Issues of Interpretation and Comparison in The Study of Legal Ideologies
Authors: Greenhouse Carol J.
Published: June 2006

This article explores the connections between the interpretive and comparative dimensions of ideology by analyzing ethnographic data from an American town. The town is undergoing a rapid process of urbanization, and townspeople are absorbed in the analysis of the changes around them and their town's prospects as a community. The article compares interview data and courtroom observations in which local understandings are shown to be constituted in pervasive cultural distinctions: past and future, insiders and outsiders, harmony and conflict, gender, and various forms of family life shape local views of change and conflict. The conclusion relates an analysis of the symbolic terms in which these distinctions are expressed to general issues of the nature of ideologies and their truth claims.
The Ideological Effects of Actuarial Practices
Authors: Simon Jonathan
Published: June 2006

Over the last century there has been significant growth within our society of practices that distribute costs and benefits to individuals based on statistical knowledge about the population. These actuarial practices like insurance premium setting and standardized testing in educational admissions are successful largely because they allow power to be exercised more effectively and at lower political cost. At the same time they generate ideological effects which have the potential to transform the way individuals understand themselves and their groups. In a 1977 case, Los Angeles Water and Power v. Manhart (435 U.S. 702), the United States Supreme Court considered a challenge to the actuarial use of gender in setting employee benefits. The case and the debates it generated illuminate the danger posed by the ideological effects of actuarial practices to our political culture in general, and to traditionally disempowered classes such as women in particular. At the same time it illustrates the limitation of traditional legal rights discourse as a means of resisting these dangers.
Appeals to Civic Virtue Versus Attention to Self-Interest: Effects on Tax Compliance
Authors: Mcgraw Kathleen M. , Scholz John T.
Published: June 2006

In an influential article, Schwartz and Orleans (1967) reported that emphasizing normative obligations to obey the law had a greater positive impact on tax compliance than did emphasizing deterrence factors. In this article, we report the results of a conceptual replication of that earlier experiment, within the context of a dynamic model of tax schema change.

Prior to filing the 1987 tax year return (the first affected by the 1986 Tax Reform Act, TRA), taxpayers viewed one of two videotapes, one emphasizing the social consequences of the TRA and normative duties, the other emphasizing the personal consequences of the TRA and strategies to reduce tax liability. A control group of taxpayers did not receive information about the TRA. Data on attitudes, beliefs, and self-reported compliance were collected at three points during the tax season. Tax return data from the IRS were also obtained. The results indicate that the normative and personal consequences messages had predictable and persistent effects on tax-specific attitudes. However, these effects did not translate into changes in basic values or compliance, as reflected by either the self-report or the official tax return data. Possible explanations for the discrepancy between the results reported by Schwartz and Orleans (1967) and this experiment are considered.
How the Law Thinks: Toward a Constructivist Epistemology of Law
Authors: Teubner Gunther
Published: June 2006

Twas bryllig, and the slythy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves; and the mome raths outgrabe.

American law professor commenting on Niklas Luhmann, “The Unity of the Legal System”

European and American scholars of law and society apparently have problems in communicating with each other. To invoke Lewis Carroll's authority on a piece of legal theory indicates how serious the problems are. After all, traced to its true origins, “Jabberwocky,” the famous “Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” (Carroll, 1855; 1871: 191), means “weeks of woe” in its original German version (Scott alias Chatterton, 1872). And inextricably involved in the interpretation of the poetry is a certain Hermann von Schwindel . . .
How Much Does Law Matter? Labor Law, Competition, and Waterfront Labor Relations in Rotterdam and U.S. Ports
Authors: Kagan Robert A.
Published: June 2006

In an increasingly competitive world marketplace, can cross-national variations in law—in this case, in labor law—produce markedly different economic outcomes? In both The Netherlands and the United States, law has helped rationalize the hiring of port labor and provide dockworkers greater security. However, American longshoremen have captured a larger share of the productivity gains flowing from the mechanization of cargo handling than have Dutch dockworkers. Because of constraints imposed by American longshore unions, container terminals in Rotterdam are more efficient and less costly to users. These differences can in part be explained by American labor law, which encourages a more adversarial, self-seeking union posture than does the labor law structure in The Netherlands. Probably more important, however, are economic factors, which expose Dutch dockworkers (but not West Coast longshoremen) to competition from ports in other nations. Similarly, international competition, intensified by the technological revolution in transportation, seems likely to impel cross-national convergence in many spheres, leveling differences in law and in legally influenced outcomes.