bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Property in Law and Development
Authors: Gupta Priya S.
Published: December 2023

The chapter examines the establishment of liberal property regimes through economic development endeavours and the resulting forms of governance that emerged. It argues that such programmes were aimed at making land (and other features of the natural environment) legible to law—and therefore the market—through property regimes. The chapter first introduces economic development programmes in the post-war period and delineates the values and political–economic motivations that informed liberal property regimes. It then draws on literature from Third World approaches to international law, Indigenous perspectives on law, and racial capitalism to understand the longer history of those values in colonialism and slavery. The chapter closes with the implications of financialised forms of capitalism and development for property regimes, arguing that the governance of land and other features of the natural environment is increasingly subjected to the rationality and form of financial markets.
Transitional Justice and Development
Authors: Nesiah Vasuki
Published: December 2023

In the post-Cold War period, in societies and spaces deemed conflict zones, in a moment deemed ‘the end of history’, the reigning logics of the human rights and development fields develop a symbiotic relationship captured in the liberal internationalist discourse of good governance. Good governance in conflict zones referenced the transitional justice processes delivering stability and closure, and the institutional reform and economic restructuring measures facilitating absorption into the global market. In both fields, problems were construed in terms of the local rather than transnational, and post-colonial histories rather than colonial histories; good governance became a shorthand for speaking to the internal structure of particular societies, and their conformity with the rules of the game in the prevailing world order. However, while the governance focus remains dominant, across the globe today we also see social movements contesting this closure oriented, teleological approach to transition, challenging the terms of good governance, and opening political terrain in domains that were treated as disaster zones. For these movements, it is not the end of history but the beginning of new struggles.
New Technologies of International Law and Development
Authors: Natile Serena
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines the rise of new technologies in development discourse and shows how technology is both enabled by and an enabler of asymmetrical power relations within the international legal order. The chapter begins by discussing the legacy of colonialism and the unrealised redistributive demands of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1970s, and moves to the hype that has surrounded new technologies throughout different stages of the international development project since the 1990s. It considers the adoption of the ICT for development framework, the recent expansion of financial technologies, and the contradictions of using digital technologies to realise sustainable development. The analysis reveals how the unequal distribution of benefits and risks deriving from new technologies is strictly linked to the maldistribution of wealth and power legitimised by international law. This is particularly true with respect to the rules that underpin the system, including selective liberalisation, privatisation, marketisation, and the increasing influence of the private sector and corporate philanthropy in the absence of corresponding binding frameworks for accountability and redistribution.
A Better Way of World Making?
Authors: Sinclair Guy Fiti
Published: December 2023

The interventions made by the United Nations (UN) in the field of international law and development are commonly contrasted with those of international financial institutions. This chapter reflects critically on the common narrative of the UN’s ‘better way’ by analysing its activities in relation to international law and development, arguing that the worldmaking projects pursued by and through the UN have been conditioned by its international legal form, powers, and institutional architecture. The chapter sketches a brief history of how changes in the UN’s institutional framework, ideas about development, and legal interventions have contributed and responded to broader projects of international ordering. The shared logic of liberal reform underpinning these projects goes some way to explaining why the worldmaking effects of UN activities share so much in common with those of other, ostensibly opposing approaches to development.
Judicial System
Authors: Flick Witzig Martina , Rothmayr Allison Christine , Varone Frédéric
Published: December 2023

The chapter sheds light on the relationship between the judiciary and politics, taking up the question of the extent of judicialization in Switzerland. Switzerland exhibits contradictory facets in this regard. On the one hand, the close ties between the political parties and the judiciary, which are particularly evident in the context of judicial elections, suggest a strong politicization of courts. On the other hand, the limited constitutional jurisdiction on the federal level restricts the judiciary’s sphere of influence. The chapter presents the central features of the Swiss judicial system. Focusing on the Federal Supreme Court, it summarizes the findings of recent research and discusses the influence of international institutions and judicial mechanisms on the transformation of Swiss institutions and national political debates.
Municipalities
Authors: Ladner Andreas , Keuffer Nicolas
Published: December 2023

Municipalities are of great importance in Swiss politics and society. They provide a large part of essential public services and allow voters to have a direct-democratic influence on political decisions. In a comparative perspective, Swiss municipalities are remarkable since they carry a considerable amount of autonomy, and they fund their activities through their own tax income. In addition to this more general setting, the bottom-up conception of Swiss federalism leads to a huge diversity when it comes to their internal organization and their relationship with other actors and the higher levels of state. There are twenty-six cantonal legislatures to be considered, and important differences depend on the size of municipalities and the language area they belong to. In the German-speaking part of the country, municipalities are generally larger, more autonomous, and practice a form of assembly democracy. In the French-speaking part, the higher level is more extensively involved in local policies, municipalities are smaller, and, with their dominant pattern of elected local councils, they are in line with the idea of representative democracy. This chapter relies on the monitoring of the municipalities since 1988 and other sources to describe the legal status, autonomy, finances, and tasks of Swiss municipalities and their structural and cultural differences, as well as local political systems, representation, and reforms. It suggests that, despite the legal equality of Swiss municipalities, the major differences between them have a massive influence on their functioning. These differences are of great interest for research in local governance.
Metropolitan Areas
Authors: Kübler Daniel
Published: December 2023

Today, more than 80 per cent of the Swiss population live in an urban environment. Metropolitan areas, i.e. functionally integrated city-regions that have sprawled into the countryside, have become the dominant form of human settlement in Switzerland. This chapter focuses on the implications of these spatial realities for the Swiss political system, particularly for the institutions and practices of federalism. The first part reiterates the emergence of metropolitan areas and discusses the increasing disparities between functional and institutional territories that they imply. The second part focuses on the governance issues related to the high institutional fragmentation of Swiss metropolitan areas. The third part discusses strategies aimed at addressing these issues, and their relations to three different theoretical models: the metropolitan reform approach, the public choice approach, and the so-called new regionalism. The conclusion summarizes the main aspects of this discussion and points to three fundamental questions that urban and metropolitan policies in Switzerland will need to address in the near future: the democratic deficit, rising cross-level interdependencies, and the tensions between international competitiveness and regional solidarity.
Federal Administration
Authors: Varone Frédéric , Giauque David
Published: December 2023

This chapter focuses on the Swiss federal administration and its role in agenda-setting, decision-making, policy implementation, and providing an interface between elected politicians, interest groups, and citizens; it begins with an outline of the federal administration and its evolution over time and notes the ministerial structures of the federal administration. The history of administrative reforms is retraced through a discussion regarding ‘New Public Management’. Then, the Swiss administration is placed in an international perspective. Finally, the chapter presents the human resource management issues that the federal administration has faced since the ending of the permanent status of civil servants. The concluding section highlights four upcoming challenges related to the organization and management of the Swiss federal administration.
Social Movements
Authors: Giugni Marco
Published: December 2023

This chapter discusses the state of research on social movements in Switzerland. Following a common approach in the field, social movements are defined as informal networks of actors with a collective identity, mobilizing around conflicting issues through different forms of protest. The chapter first characterizes the context in which movements in Switzerland operate, describing the structure of political opportunities for the mobilization of social movements in Switzerland. It then discusses the mobilization of a number of movements and movement families, namely traditional movements, new social movements, radical-right movements, global justice movements, and anti-austerity movements. The conclusion summarizes the key aspects discussed in the chapter, also with the aim of dismantling certain stereotypes according to which the Swiss are not very inclined to take to the streets. The chapter shows that, while social movement research in Switzerland was characterized in the early 1990s as a marginal field of research in an underdeveloped social science community, this is no longer true today, as a growing body of works has focused on social movements in Switzerland during the last thirty years.
Switzerland’s Position in Europe and the World
Authors: Bernauer Thomas , Walter Stefanie
Published: December 2023

Global economic integration and global political restraint—this fine balance has characterized Switzerland’s relationship with the international community since the Swiss federal state was founded in 1848. Geopolitical change and crises, globalization, and the European integration process, however, have increasingly challenged this traditional model of Swiss foreign relations. With its entry into the UN (2002) and two sets of bilateral treaties with the EU (2000, 2005) Switzerland has taken significant steps towards a stronger political involvement in the international arena, even if a clear majority of Swiss voters, parliament, and the government remain opposed to EU membership. This chapter situates Switzerland in the global economy and in international politics. It begins by contextualizing Switzerland in its international environment and comparing it with its neighbours as well as some additional countries. The chapter then shows that Switzerland is one of the most ‘globalized’, i.e., most open countries in the world. Finally, it shows that the political system of Switzerland has slowly but noticeably reacted to European as well as the global political and economic changes of the recent past. Nevertheless, in respect of foreign policy, voters remain divided into two camps; these camps view the implications of increasing integration into the European and global arena very differently, in particular with regard to the consequences for sovereignty, neutrality, federalism, and direct democracy. This division generates considerable political controversies about the challenges Switzerland faces.
National Elections
Authors: Lutz Georg , Tresch Anke
Published: December 2023

The remarkable stability of national elections in Switzerland for over sixty years after the introduction of proportional representation in 1919 came to an end with the rise of the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in the mid-1990s. Overall, party affiliation—and hence stability of the electoral choice—has declined significantly. As a result, situational factors, like issue salience, issue positioning, and long- and short-term campaign priorities, have become significant for electoral choice. These changes have also intensified competition among parties, which have begun to centralize their election campaigns and deploy new campaign techniques. Yet, turnout remains low despite these changes: since 1979, turnout in National Council elections has been below 50 per cent. This is due to the complexity of the electoral system and the high frequency of votes in Switzerland’s direct-democratic system.
Foreign Policy
Authors: Goetschel Laurent
Published: December 2023

Swiss foreign policy has been characterized by neutrality and direct democracy. Both promoted rather passive and slow motion foreign relations of the historically small country, guardian of the alpine passes, in the centre of Western Europe. The emergence of collective security at the global level and of regional integration in Europe challenged the traditional orientation and functioning mode of Swiss foreign policy. Furthermore, the rise of new global values generated additional stakeholders, interested in foreign policy at the national level, beyond the traditional dominant economic actors. These developments caused major shifts in expectations towards foreign policy and prompted still ongoing discussions on its general orientation. While the country will not abandon neutrality or join the European Union anytime soon, it has started to take on further institutional responsibilities as best symbolized by its first time membership in the UN Security Council in the years 2023/24. Swiss foreign policy will be characterized by a stronger international presence. Its profile is, however, still subject to negotiations.
Security Policy and Politics
Authors: Wenger Andreas
Published: December 2023

Switzerland’s security policy has broadened and deepened considerably since the end of the Cold War. The general threat perception and the strategic and operational response to it by a variety of actors have changed fundamentally. Current threat concepts emphasize the unpredictability and multifaceted nature of the threat situation, which arise from the large number of potentially relevant governmental, semi-governmental, and non-governmental sources of threat that extend beyond the military domain. Responding appropriately to this broad concept also requires a wide variety of security policy instruments and tools deployed by a complex web of actors from the government, society, and the private sector, who also interact with each other on several levels. This leads not only to a more pluralistic approach, but also to numerous interfaces with other policy fields and, ultimately, to numerous conflicts of objectives in terms of coherence, coordination, implementation, and legitimacy. The chapter discusses the challenges that arise against this background and shows how contemporary security policy has evolved and steadily changed to adapt to these challenges. Special focus is placed on the different actor constellations in Swiss security politics at the various levels and their relevant expertise. The final section outlines open questions and possible future developments that have arisen in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Education Policy
Authors: Giudici Anja , Emmenegger Patrick
Published: December 2023

Education policy is often regarded as the last bastion of Swiss federalism. However, in the last few decades, this policy field has been profoundly reshaped on the backdrop of intra- and international competition and mobility as well as the rise of knowledge-based economies and educational testing. This chapter characterizes Swiss education politics and policy on three key dimensions—its comparative centralization, standardization, and stratification. Building on this analytical description, this chapter shows that the different orientations of vocational and general education—with the former being oriented primarily towards upskilling, and the latter being perceived more in redistributive and enculturation terms—have produced distinctive cleavages and coalitions, thus leading to different developments in terms of governance, institutional reconfigurations, and future challenges.
Migration Policy
Authors: Lavenex Sandra
Published: December 2023

With more than a third of Switzerland’s resident population having an immigration background, asylum and immigration policy occupy a central stage in Swiss politics. Originally addressed in a rather narrow manner as a matter of the ‘foreigner’s police’, and regulated by corporatist ties between employer federations, the Unions, and Swiss authorities, migration policy has turned into a highly politicized cross-departmental concern. Today, both economic and humanitarian migration policies are heavily shaped by Switzerland’s association to the European Union. In exchange for its association to the European single market, Switzerland has had to defend the principle of free movement of persons for EU/EFTA citizens against the backdrop of direct-democratic initiatives. At the same time, Switzerland benefits from the EU’s endeavours to fight irregular immigration and to allocate responsibility for the examination of asylum claims via its association to the Schengen and Dublin frameworks. Beyond the EU, Switzerland has also played a prominent role in promoting international cooperation on migration. However, the Swiss government has faced difficulties reconciling its humanitarian posture in multilateral settings with the xenophobic constraints at home.
Integration Policy
Authors: Manatschal Anita
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines Swiss integration policy from an international comparative perspective and assesses its evolution through a historical lens. In line with international trends, a gradual improvement in the social and economic rights of legally resident foreigners can be observed, which facilitated access to the Swiss labour market, family reunification, or social benefits. Resistance towards these trends is concentrated in the realms of political and cultural rights. Formal requirements to acquire Swiss citizenship remain high, and the country continues to hold an assimilationist understanding of integration, with only scarce concessions to cultural pluralism. This restrictive policy orientation reflects for instance in the considerable share of third-generation non-Swiss citizens, meaning grandchildren of immigrants, who still hold no Swiss passport. Right-wing populist parties such as the Swiss People’s Party nurture this restrictive impetus, and profit from the instruments of direct democracy to translate it into policies. Since the early 2000s, this strategy has been increasingly successful, as documented by the adoption of the minaret ban (2009), the initiative against mass immigration (2014), or the face disclosure initiative (2021) at the polls. From a structural perspective, similarly to other federations, policies regulating the political, socio-economic, and cultural-religious inclusion of non-citizen residents in the country evolved in a bottom-up manner. Although a more proactive stance in this field was developed at the national level over the last two decades, cantons and municipalities retain significant authority for their own approaches to the implementation as well as the formulation of integration policy.
Family Policy
Authors: Häusermann Silja , Bürgisser Reto
Published: December 2023

Family policy has become an increasingly important policy area in Switzerland since the 1990s. Benefits and services to families have undergone profound transformations. Some reforms became possible because family policy was increasingly defined not only as social policy but also as social investment policy promoting employment and human capital formation. This ambiguity enabled reforms to be supported by heterogeneous reform coalitions, even if long-term coalitions remain unstable and depend on the specific reform proposal. Despite these changes, Swiss family policy is still underdeveloped and falls behind that of other continental European countries. Government spending on family policy is low by international standards, and the use of formal childcare is strongly stratified by income. Important factors contributing to this slow pace of family policy modernization in Switzerland are the decentralized distribution of competences with different levels of government and the use of various direct democratic instruments to prevent or delay reform initiatives at different levels of governance. Moreover, the party system’s increasing political polarization slows down reform efforts and undermines reform coalitions between socially progressive and economically liberal forces. In the face of these challenges, the adaptation of family policy to changing social and economic needs has become a litmus test for the reform capacity of the Swiss welfare state.
Direct Democracy
Authors: Stadelmann-Steffen Isabelle , Leemann Lucas
Published: December 2023

Direct democracy—instruments that allow for citizens’ direct participation in legislative politics—is one of the corner stones of the Swiss political system. The chapter starts with a descriptive exercise of illustrating the historic emergence of direct-democratic institutions in Switzerland, how the institutions were introduced, and how access to these instruments was made easier over time. Apart from this de jure perspective, it also looks at the de facto use of these institutions over the last 170 years and shows that the use of the different institutions follows different patterns. Building on the descriptive part, it turns to the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy on the working of representative democracy. Direct-democratic institutions disperse power by either adding a potential veto player (e.g., the optional referendum) or by extending the set of actors that have agenda-setting power (e.g., initiative). There is a discussion of how the presence of these institutions alters the rationale of political actors and by doing so affects political processes and outcomes. In the last part of the chapter, the discussion broadens the geographic focus and compares direct-democratic institutions in Swiss cantons with direct-democratic institutions in subnational units in Germany and Austria as well as in states in the US. The chapter concludes with an outlook on the future prospects of direct democracy, namely how the working of these institutions could be affected by increasing societal polarization and by the digital transformation.
Parliament
Authors: Bailer Stefanie , Bütikofer Sarah
Published: December 2023

The chapter on the Swiss parliament offers an introduction of the institutional characteristics and functioning of the National Council and the Council of States, the two parliamentary chambers of the Swiss parliament. It elaborates how the Swiss parliamentarians are elected and discusses the composition and functions of this parliament. The specificities of this system, characterized by two equally powerful chambers, part-time national parliamentarians, very few administrative resources, and a lack of transparency in party and campaign financing, are outlined and explained in detail. In addition, the chapter measures the power of the Swiss parliament with an institutional power index based on its formal rights and compares the result with qualitative estimates of parliamentary and political experts to provide an encompassing estimate of the power of parliament. As two key developments that are particularly characteristic for this parliament in recent years, the increase in professionalization and the growing influence of interest groups and how they impact the Federal Assembly are discussed.
Research on Cognitive Shortcomings in Comparative Judicial Behaviour
Authors: Braman Eileen
Published: December 2023

This chapter highlights comparative research that implicates the ability of judges to make decisions that are fair, accurate, and that adequately account for various influences in their reasoning processes. Studies detailing mechanisms of ideological influence in legal decision-making, including proportionality standards, analogical reasoning, and the separability of various considerations in legal reasoning, are discussed as well as research on in-group and implicit biases in judgments across national contexts. Experimental and observational findings demonstrate irrelevant considerations, like the content of expressive speech and the character of litigants, can impact the judgments of jurists in both criminal and civil litigation and these are explored. There is also evidence that heuristic strategies relating to hindsight, anchoring and adjustment, and the consideration of base rates can lead to systematic errors and/or bias in judges’ decision-making. Finally, there is research suggesting judges are often unaware of the various influences on their reasoning, and in some instances unwilling to memorialize the importance of certain considerations in their judgments, calling justifications they give for their opinions into question. The chapter concludes with a call for further research into the causes of specific cognitive shortcomings that have been discovered to help identify the debiasing mechanisms that are best suited to address deficiencies in judgment across various decision contexts.
Selecting Judges
Authors: Brashear Tiede Lydia
Published: December 2023

Because judges make influential decisions, understanding how they are selected is paramount. This chapter documents variations in judicial selection worldwide, specifically focusing on how different selection rules allow political and other societal actors to impact the selection process, which could provide such actors with an additional veto point in policy-making. The chapter reviews and categorizes general and specific types of selection mechanisms for 218 constitutional and supreme courts, finding substantial variation in the extent to which certain political actors dominate the process. While a large number of constitutional courts reviewed use a mixed selection mechanism, whereby different political actors choose a specific number of judges, selection dominated by a judicial council or commission is more prevalent for Supreme Courts. However, while it is assumed that judges selected by political actors will favour their selectors in their decisions, the exact design of the selection mechanism as well as the composition of the court and the political context within which it makes decisions may attenuate this expectation. Additional rules and norms related to judicial selection also may influence gender, ethnic, and professional diversity on the court as well as diversity of judicial ideologies or biases. Selection rules viewed in conjunction with other institutional rules and informal practices may undermine the intended effect of selection. The chapter highlights how different selection rules and informal practices influence judicial independence and behaviour and have the potential to allow either for political manipulation or the creation of diverse forums for decision-making.
Measuring Political Preferences
Authors: Epstein Lee , Martin Andrew D. , Quinn Kevin
Published: December 2023

Almost all theories of judicial behaviour ascribe a key role to political preferences. The idea is that the judges want to align the law with their political commitments—whether ideological or partisan. This chapter explores strategies for measuring and estimating the judges’ political preferences. It consists of two major parts: exogenous measures of political preferences (those that are based on information causally prior to any votes cast or other choices the judges make) and endogenous measures (those that depend on revealed behaviour). The authors detail the strengths and weaknesses of the various measures, and offer suggestions for forward movement. Mostly, though, they encourage readers to keep an open mind as to the best ways to measure political preferences in their own applications.
Cumulative Advantage, Intergenerational Reproduction, and Life-Course Mobility
Authors: DiPrete Thomas A.
Published: December 2023

Cumulative advantage (CA) is a mechanism for attainment that arises when past advantages and accomplishments affect future life chances. This chapter reviews the principal features of the CA model. It then considers how the CA model can be elaborated to illuminate institutional mechanisms that may interact with CA processes to affect life-course mobility. The importance of CA mechanisms for life-course mobility depends on the complementarity and substitutability of resources that flow across generations for accomplishment-based resources. Because intergenerational resources may interact with CA processes to affect outcomes, CA is potentially a mechanism that affects intergenerational as well as life-course mobility. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms calls for their study both within specific institutional contexts and as aggregate characteristics of a society’s mobility regime. This paper proposes empirical strategies that respond to this call.
Schools and Juvenile Justice
Authors: Fine Adam D. , Stanek Kayleigh A. , Montes Andrea N.
Published: December 2023

School environments prioritize not just academic achievement but also youth development and socialization. However, the school environment can serve as a catalyst for involving youth in the juvenile justice system. In contemporary schools, students often have contact with legal actors, such as school resource officers or probation officers. Many schools also invest in policies and programs that involve bringing court actors into the school environment to respond to student misbehavior or to be a part of efforts to improve school safety. This chapter discusses the current state of the literature on how schools and the legal system interact, and their combined impact on students’ well-being. Scholars have found that embedding legal actors within schools can disproportionately affect minority students and create a school-to-prison pipeline. Simultaneously, there is little evidence that these initiatives have improved school safety. It concludes with recommendations for advancing research, policy, and practice.
Adult Development and the Law
Authors: Redlich Allison D. , Quas Jodi A.
Published: December 2023

In the second section of the Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology and the Law, leading scholars describe how young, middle-aged, and older adults’ experiences with the justice system are complex and broad. For some, this includes contact with the criminal justice system, when, for example, younger or older adults are suspected of committing crimes or have potentially witnessed crimes. They must be questioned and possibly participate in criminal proceedings as a result. For others, this includes contact after criminal conviction. For example, mothers but also older adults may be living behind bars often with children or significant health needs that shape their legal experiences. For others, legal experiences focus on their rights as individuals to make decisions about themselves, their bodies, and their families and children. As the chapters highlight, there is enormous value in terms of both policy and practice to viewing legal involvement through the lens of lifespan development.
Understanding Deviancy in Adulthood
Authors: Narvey Chelsey S. , Piquero Alex R.
Published: December 2023

The current chapter provides an overview of the present state of research on adult deviancy, with a specific focus on adult criminal offending. The chapter outlines the relationship between age and crime, providing an understanding of the age–crime curve. Additionally, it reviews two main theories that discuss this relationship, comparing and contrasting their central tenets. Based on these theoretical foundations, the current state of the literature regarding onset of criminal offending is presented, providing two differing sets of opinions: one, that adult-onset criminality does not exist, but instead that these individuals had been engaging in offending behavior throughout the life course; two, that adult-onset offending does indeed exist and can be explained. Lastly, the chapter discusses implications for research, policy, and practice.
Adults With Developmental Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System
Authors: Salekin Karen L. , Wood Mary E.
Published: December 2023

Individuals with developmental disabilities, especially intellectual disability, present with characteristic deficits in their intellectual functioning and social–interpersonal skills that place them at a unique disadvantage at nearly every stage of the criminal justice process, from initial involvement in criminal conduct and/or victimization through sentencing. The current chapter reviews the literature regarding the ways in which these deficits interact with criminal justice involvement, including adjudicative competence, capacity to waive Miranda rights, and culpability. This review culminates with a discussion of potential solutions to improve the identification of individuals with developmental disabilities in the criminal justice system, as well as ways to reduce the potential detrimental impact of their deficits in an adversarial system.
The Impact of Reproductive Rights on Women’s Development
Authors: Whelan Allison M. , Bratcher Goodwin Michele
Published: December 2023

Reproductive health, an essential element of women’s overall health, shapes and influences physical, mental, and socioeconomic development and well-being. Further, the decision of whether, when, and how to build a family and birth a child can profoundly affect short- and long-term adult development and well-being. As a result, laws, policies, and practices that influence reproductive health may positively influence or undermine a woman’s development, depending on whether they facilitate or restrict access to care. As the United States leads industrialized nations in maternal mortality and morbidity, examining the impacts of reproductive rights on women’s development represents an urgent concern. This chapter focuses primarily on abortion, contraception, and pregnancy to demonstrate how reproductive health encompasses a broad array of important issues. It reviews relevant laws, policies, and practices that shape aspects of reproductive health and describes their effects on various facets of development. It concludes by discussing the implications of the current evidence and offering suggestions for further research.
Developmental Pathways to Antisocial Behavior
Authors: Frick Paul J. , Kemp Emily C. , Speck Julianne S.
Published: December 2023

This chapter illustrates a developmental psychopathology approach to understanding antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Specifically, the chapter summarizes research suggesting that there are three common ways that various risk factors can influence critical developmental mechanisms that make a child more likely to act in ways that violate the rights of others or that violate major societal norms, both of which can lead to justice system involvement. One such pathway involves youth who do not show serious conduct problems until they approach adolescence and who then seem to experience an exaggeration of typical adolescent rebellion associated with identity formation. Two other pathways involve conduct problems that emerge earlier in development and that are related to either deficits in the typical development of conscience or deficits in the typical ability to appropriately regulate emotions and behaviors. In summarizing the research supporting these different developmental pathways, the chapter illustrates the implications of this approach for research, assessment, and treatment of youth who show serious antisocial behavior, as well as the implications for juvenile justice policy.
A Commentary on Adulthood/Aging, Developmental Psychology, and the Law
Authors: Rodriguez Nancy , Waggoner Katherine
Published: December 2023

The current chapter is a commentary on the chapters on adulthood and aging in this volume. The authors of the chapters make excellent contributions on topics central to the intersection of adulthood and aging and the law. Based on this cumulative body of research, this chapter offers several themes that cut across the chapters. It begins by highlighting the role of social inequality in the life course and why it is increasingly relevant for advancing well-being and improving quality of life. The chapter discusses the alignment of legal policy, social norms around age, and developmental science, as well as how changing social norms are represented in legal policy. It moves on to a discussion on the relationship between criminal justice system outcomes in facilitating and/or inhibiting services for adults and the elderly. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for research, policy, and practice.
Memory, Suggestibility, and Disclosure Processes
Authors: Slonecker Emily M. , Olaguez Alma P. , Taffe Rachel L. , Klemfuss J. Zoe
Published: December 2023

Children’s eyewitness capabilities, suggestibility, and disclosure processes have direct consequences for legal procedures and may shape the progress and outcomes of legal cases. This chapter describes relevant empirical research on child development and explains how research has informed legal practices and policies. In the first of two sections, the chapter provides an overview of children’s memory development during childhood and identifies internal and external factors that are related to children’s memory errors. The chapter then briefly discusses the field’s current knowledge of children’s disclosure and recantation processes. In the second section, the topics from the first section are applied to the legal system and their consequences for forensic interviews and courtroom testimony examined. The chapter concludes with implications for the legal field and identifies directions for future research.
A Developmental Perspective on Unaccompanied Migrant Youth in the U.S. Immigration Legal System
Authors: Brabeck Kalina M. , Gonzalez Deborah , Rendón García Sarah , Pendergast Adrian
Published: December 2023

This chapter focuses on a subset of immigrant youth—unaccompanied youth who enter the United States without a caregiver and without legal status—and their experiences as they navigate the U.S. immigration system. The chapter considers (a) how these youth’s developmental capacities and limitations shape their experiences within the U.S. legal system, including detention and deportation proceedings, and (b) how participation in the legal system shapes the youth’s development. It summarizes legal issues affecting migrant youth, including child detention, the Flores settlement, and the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act; youth’s experiences in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody; available forms of relief for migrant youth; and youth’s lack of right to counsel in deportation proceedings. It also examines the effects of development on youth’s detention, understanding of and participation in the legal system, and testimony in immigration proceedings. The chapter concludes that the U.S. legal system fails to consider development science in its policies and practices with migrant youth.
Adoption
Authors: Palacios Jesús , Brodzinsky David M. , Grotevant Harold D.
Published: December 2023

Adoption as a means of creating or expanding a family has undergone some remarkable changes in the past half century, resulting in considerable diversity in the constellation and dynamics of adoptive family life. These changes have been fueled by several societal forces including new adoption laws and regulations, research findings from emerging developmental science, and advocacy efforts by key adoption stakeholders. The current chapter explores the synergistic connections between these forces, and specifically between adoption placement practices, adoption law, and developmental science. The first section explores how adoption has been utilized by researchers to study age-old questions about human development, including the role of early experience on later development, recovery from adversity, critical periods in development, and contextual factors that impede or facilitate recovery from adversity. The second section explores the emergence of diversity in adoption in terms of the characteristics of children being adopted and the adults who are adopting them, which has been influenced by changes in adoption law and supported by empirical research challenging narrowly held views about the type of family that best supports children’s needs. The third section examines more closely several examples of how developmental research has contributed to the emergence of diversity in adoptive family life, influencing decision making by adoption policymakers, agency administrators, and the court. The rich synergistic exchange between adoption practice, the law, and developmental science supports a more refined view of human development and a better understanding of how best to support adoptive family members.
Defoe’s Life and Times
Authors: Cowan Brian
Published: December 2023

This chapter situates Daniel Defoe’s life and writings in the literary, social, and political history of Britain from the Restoration to the period following the Hanoverian succession. Defoe was born in the wake of the regicidal revolution that produced the Civil War and a brief period of republicanism; he lived his early life in the context of the legal clampdown on religious dissent, and he started out as a businessman. He was an avid supporter of the Revolution of 1688, which established the Protestant succession and religious toleration for nonconformists. After establishing these wider contexts, the chapter surveys Defoe’s writing career: his reputation in his lifetime as a whiggish and seditious ‘scribbler’ of topical wrings for payment, and the growth in his ‘literary’ reputation in the later eighteenth century. As well as his politics and his writings, the chapter discusses portraits of Defoe and his earnings from his writings.
The Style of Defoe’s Correspondence
Authors: Mierowsky Marc
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines Daniel Defoe’s use of letters, both within printed works that adopt an epistolary format such as The Complete English Tradesman (1725–7) and his personal correspondence with politicians and other associates. The chapter reveals Defoe’s cultivation of what he understood to be a ‘plain’ prose style as a literary and ethical ideal. It thus explores Defoe’s self-fashioning as a plain-dealer in his letters by setting his epistolary corpus in the context of his political career. It appraises Defoe’s use of instructional letters to promote social values among ordinary readers. And it attends to Defoe’s use of the letter genre in polemical pamphlets, particularly those addressed to Dissenters. Finally, it analyses Defoe’s epistolary novel, A Continuation of Letters Written by a Turkish Spy (1718), which operates as an instructional guide and as an exploration through letters of a complicated personal identity.
Defoe and Satire
Authors: Hone Joseph
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines Daniel Defoe’s satirical output. It demonstrates the importance of satire in Defoe’s literary career and suggests that he was often a less conventional satirist than most scholars have assumed. Firstly, the chapter explores Defoe’s writings about satire: how it ought to be written and what it might accomplish. It then focuses on the strategies of ‘reform’ that Defoe embedded in his satirical writing, including texts such as The True-Born Englishman (1700/1) and Jure Divino (1706). The final section turns away from poetry to examine Defoe’s reputation as an author of libellous pamphlets, focusing on the fallout from the publication of The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters in 1702.
Gender, Sexuality, and the Status of Women in Defoe’s Writings
Authors: Backscheider Paula R.
Published: December 2023

In all of the genres in which he wrote, Daniel Defoe made major contributions to our understanding of the social history of women. This chapter elucidates his apprehension of the statuses of various kinds of women, of the determinants of hierarchy, and of the readable status words and markers most important to Defoe. It begins with the relevant definitions of ‘status’ and keeps firmly in mind the imbrication of sex, gender, status, work, and agency. Because marriage and sexuality were of special importance in determining women’s legal and religious rights and limitations as well as sexuality and marriage conditions, these topics receive special attention.
Family and Domesticity in Defoe’s Writings
Authors: Bellamy Liz
Published: December 2023

Daniel Defoe’s writings have been cited by both sides in the debate over whether family structures were characterized by change or continuity in early modern England. This essay analyses representations of domesticity in Defoe, to explore the relationship between fictional and non-fictional constructions, and assess their ideological, historical, and literary significance. It argues that Defoe’s works cannot be accommodated into conventional paradigms of a shift from feudalism to capitalism, or from public to private ideology. Instead, both the fiction and non-fiction construct a domestic model which represents a radical mercantile appropriation of the extended family, framing economic and inherently exploitative relationships in the language of paternal duty and patriarchal authority. At the same time, the development of Defoe’s novels shows increasing awareness of the drama within domestic life, and the potential of the family as the primary source of fiction.
Defoe’s Poetry
Authors: Novak Maximillian E.
Published: December 2023

At a time of a wide appreciation of political poetry, Daniel Defoe produced a number of excellent political poems. At his best Defoe was able to infuse his arguments with the indignation and power of an Andrew Marvell. And on occasions he was able to reveal some of the cleverness that marked the verse of John Dryden. He was a star of the many volumed anthology Poems on Affairs of State (1716), but his reputation as poet suffered from both the changing taste in poetry towards a more aesthetic model and from Defoe’s reputation as a political turncoat. But Defoe was not a novelist who happened to write a few poems. He continued writing poetry from his youthful ‘Meditations’ to the religious poetry—some argumentative, some devotional—of his final years. He experimented with a variety of verse forms, from ballads to odes, and regarded his poetry with seriousness.