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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ascriptive Characteristics And Perceptions Of Impropriety In The Rule Of Law: Race, Gender, And Public Assessments Of Whether Judges Can Be Impartial, Yoshikuni Ono, Michael A. Zilis
Ascriptive Characteristics And Perceptions Of Impropriety In The Rule Of Law: Race, Gender, And Public Assessments Of Whether Judges Can Be Impartial, Yoshikuni Ono, Michael A. Zilis
Political Science Faculty Publications
Perceptions of procedural fairness influence the legitimacy of the law and because procedures are mutable, reforming them can buttress support for the rule of law. Yet legal authorities have recently faced a distinct challenge: accusations of impropriety based on their ascriptive characteristics (e.g., gender, ethnicity). We study the effect of these traits in the context of the U.S. legal system, focusing on the conditions under which citizens perceive female and minority judges as exhibiting impropriety and how this compares with perceptions of their white and male counterparts. We find that Americans use a judge's race and gender to make inferences …
Power Sharing And The Rule Of Law In The Aftermath Of Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie
Power Sharing And The Rule Of Law In The Aftermath Of Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie
Political Science Faculty Publications
What effect do power-sharing institutions agreed to as part of civil war settlements have on the development of the rule of law in post–civil war states? We contend that power-sharing measures facilitate the emergence of the rule of law in two ways. First, they establish a form of institutional constraint that promotes judicial autonomy and independence. Second, they foster a sense of security among judges and other political actors that bolsters commitment to the law. We demonstrate the plausibility of a positive relationship between power sharing and the rule of law through an analysis of post–civil war states between the …
External Conditionalities And Institutional Change: Constructing Constituencies For The Rule Of Law In Kosovo, Sandra F. Joireman
External Conditionalities And Institutional Change: Constructing Constituencies For The Rule Of Law In Kosovo, Sandra F. Joireman
Political Science Faculty Publications
Kosovo is one of several Western Balkans countries that are part of the next round of accession to the EU. Like Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, it is also a country in which the history of conflict is recent and the benefits of EU membership ought to be a strong economic and political enticement to meet the standards necessary for membership. Yet, instead of major transformation of the post-conflict society towards democratization, economic development and a robust human rights regime, the prospect of European Union membership appears to be leading to superficial legal changes without enforcement. This article investigates the tensions …
Republicanism, Richard Dagger
Republicanism, Richard Dagger
Political Science Faculty Publications
Republicanism is an ancient tradition of political thought that has enjoyed a remarkable revival in recent years. As with liberalism, conservatism, and other enduring political traditions, there is considerable disagreement as to exactly what republicanism is and who counts as a republican, whether in the ancient world or contemporary times. Scholars agree, however, that republicanism rests on the conviction that government is not the domain of some ruler or small set of rulers, but is instead a public matter - the res publica - to be directed by self-governing citizens.
Republicanism And Crime, Richard Dagger
Republicanism And Crime, Richard Dagger
Political Science Faculty Publications
These are but two of the difficult questions that arise when one examines the claim that crime is a public wrong. I take it, though, that their difficulty is an indication of the importance of thinking through the presuppositions and implications of this conception of crime, not a reason to abandon it. A thorough 'thinking through' is too large and complex a task for this chapter, but it is possible to make a case here for the right way to proceed with such an undertaking. That right way, in my view, is to look to the republican tradition of political …
The Evolution Of The Common Law: Legal Development In Kenya And India, Sandra F. Joireman
The Evolution Of The Common Law: Legal Development In Kenya And India, Sandra F. Joireman
Political Science Faculty Publications
Recent cross-national studies of the institutional prerequisites of economic growth have identified common law systems as superior to those of civil law. The assumption is that all common law systems share a similarity of structure and law which creates an environment facilitating investment and contract enforcement. Yet, due to its evolutionary nature, common law is not everywhere the same, nor is the historical development of the common law similar in all countries. This paper makes this point by examining the political development of common law in India and Kenya, in order to compare their legal institutions and histories. Both of …
Colonization And The Rule Of Law: Comparing The Effectiveness Of Common Law And Civil Law Countries, Sandra F. Joireman
Colonization And The Rule Of Law: Comparing The Effectiveness Of Common Law And Civil Law Countries, Sandra F. Joireman
Political Science Faculty Publications
The rule of law is one of the most important components of any explanation of cross-national differences in economic well-being. But what leads to better rule of law in a country? Using an institutional approach this paper probes the effect of legal systems in influencing the rule of law. There has long been speculation that the countries adopting English common law are better at providing legal dispute resolution than those adopting the continental forms of civil law. That speculative assessment is found to be true only in those countries that have been colonized, further analysis demonstrates that it is the …
Republican Citizenship, Richard Dagger
Republican Citizenship, Richard Dagger
Political Science Faculty Publications
'Republican' and 'citizen', in fact, are old and intertwined words - so old that some may wonder at their relevance in the brave new world of the twenty-first century, and so intertwined that the phrase 'republican citizenship' seems almost redundant to others. There is no republic without citizens, after all; and, according to the classical republican thinkers, there is no citizenship, in the full sense of the word, except among those who are fortunate enough to inhabit a republic. But this view of citizenship's connection to republicanism no longer seems to prevail. If it did, there would be no need …