Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Power, Economics And The 'Islamic Terrorism' Narrative, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton

CMC Senior Theses

This empirical study analyzes the political implications for presidential election outcomes that stem from varying felon disenfranchisement laws within the United States. In the past decade incarceration rates have drastically increased, consequently augmenting the disenfranchised population. This paper focuses on presidential election outcomes and state political party majorities in the election years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. I use demographic characteristics to calibrate assumptions for voter turnout and political party choice among the disenfranchised populations within each state. I then apply these voting populations to historical election outcomes and find that three state political party outcomes change, as well as …

Law And Lgbq-Parent Families, Emily Kazyak, Brandi Woodell

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses how the law affects LGBQ-parent families. We first outline the legal landscape that LGBQ parents face in the US, underscoring that it varies drastically by state and creates inequity for families. Reviewing existing social science research, we then address how the law affects three processes for LGBQ people: desiring parenthood, becoming a parent, and experiencing parent- hood. Our review indicates that the law affects if and how LGBQ people become parents. LGBQ people consider the law as they make decisions about whether to pursue adoption, donor insemination, or surrogacy and often view the latter two pathways as …

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Lawyered Up: Local Communities, Courts, And Urban Renewal, Madeline Spolin

Sociology Honors Projects

What is the role of the judicial system in solving issues of urban renewal? I propose that communities use courts as a redress to become part of the decision making process on urban renewal issues, because courts provide procedural issues that are easily open to challenge in federal statute. I analyze public statements made throughout the construction of the Green Line in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, a federally funded urban renewal project. In spite of built in public consultation processes, changes to transit design do not occur when concerns are raised at public consultation meetings; instead, they come from …

"'The Law’S The Law, Right?' Sexual Minority Mothers Navigating Legal Inequities And Inconsistencies.”, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

LGB parents face a number of legal inequities and confront a legal landscape that not only varies drastically by state but also quickly changes. Research has shown that some LGB parents and prospective parents have inaccurate knowledge about the laws relating to parenting. Drawing on data from 21 interviews, I ask how sexual minority mothers gain knowledge about the law. I found that people were very aware of the legal inequities they face and sought to become knowledgeable about the law before they had children. Sexual minority mothers reported using four primary methods to learn about the law: doing independent …

Why Lawyers Fear Love: Mohandas Gandhi’S Significance To The Mindfulness In Law Movement, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

Although mindfulness has gained the attention of the legal community, there are only a handful of scholarly law articles on mindfulness. The literature effectively documents the Mindfulness in Law movement, but there has been minimal effort to situate the movement into the broader history of non-Western ideas in the legal academy and profession. Similarly, there has been little recent scholarship offering a critique of the American legal system through the insights of mindfulness. In this Article, I attempt to fill these gaps by situating the Mindfulness in Law movement into the history of modern education’s western-dominated world-view. With this approach, …

How Law Shapes Experiences Of Parenthood For Same-Sex Couples, Nicholas K. Park, Emily Kazyak, Kathleen S. Slauson-Blevins

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) parents are increasingly common and visible, but they face a number of social and legal barriers in the United States. Using legal consciousness as a theoretical framework, we draw on data from 51 interviews with GLB parents in California and Nebraska to explore how laws impact experiences of parenthood. Specifically, we address how the legal context influences three domains: the methods used to become parents, decisions about where to live, and experiences of family recognition. Law and perception of the law make some pathways to parenthood difficult or unattainable depending on state of residence. Parents …

Taking Distribution Seriously, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

It is common for legal theorists and policy analysts to think and communicate mainly in maximizing terms. What is less common is for them to notice that each time we speak explicitly of socially maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing another thing and equalizing yet another thing. We also, moreover, effectively define ourselves and our fellow citizens by reference to that which we equalize; for it is in virtue of the latter that our social welfare formulations treat us as “counting” for purposes of socially aggregating and maximizing. To attend systematically to the inter-translatability of maximization language on …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

The Structure And Evolution Of The Academic Discipline Of Law In The United States: Generation And Validation Of Course-Subject Co-Occurrence (Csco) Maps, Peter A. Hook

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This dissertation proposes, exemplifies, and validates the usage of course-subject co-occurrence (CSCO) data to generate topic maps of an academic discipline. CSCO is defined as course-subjects taught in the same academic year by the same teacher. This work is premised on the assumption that in the aggregate and for reasons of efficiency, faculty members teach course-subjects that are topically similar to one another. To exemplify and validate CSCO, more than 112,000 CSCO events were extracted from the annual directories of the American Association of Law Schools covering nearly eighty years of law school teaching in the United States. The CSCO …

Legitimation, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Mark C Modak-Truran

This article identifies three different conceptions of legitimation - pre-modern, modern, and post-secular - that compete both within and across national boundaries for the coveted prize of informing the social imaginary regarding how the government and the law should be legitimated in constitutional democracies. Pre-modern conceptions of legitimation consider governments and rulers legitimate if they are ordained by God or if the political system is ordered in accordance with the normative cosmic order. Contemporary proponents of the pre-modern conception range from those in the United States who maintain that the government has been legitimated by the “Judeo-Christian tradition” to those …

Bridging The Justice Gap: Exploring Approaches For Improving Indigent Access To Civil Counsel, Kelsey Atkinson

Pomona Senior Theses

The United States is among one of the only democratic industrialized nations in the world that does not provide guaranteed access to civil representation in cases involving basic human need. This leaves indigent litigants who are at risk of losing their homes or their children left to seek counsel through insufficient pro-bono programs or limited scope legal self-help centers. This thesis provides a history of the struggle for the right to civil counsel, known as Civil Gideon, and explores a variety of proposed solutions to bridge the justice gap for indigent litigants. Despite considerable support for Civil Gideon among scholars …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

David Ingram

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Neoliberalism can be understood as the deregulation of the economy from political control by deliberate action or inaction of the state. As such it is both constituted by the law and deeply affects it. I show how the methods of historical materialism can illuminate this phenomenon in all three branches of the the U.S. government. Considering the example the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that began with the housing bubble developing from trade in unregulated and overvalued mortgage backed securities, I show how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which established a firewall between commercial and investment banking, allowed this …

Booklet Of Selected Theses From The Ma In Criminology, Ma In Law, Ma In Child, Family And Community Studies, And The International Masters In Early Childhood Education, 2010-2012, Matt Bowden, Carmel Gallagher, Kevin Lalor

Dissertations

This booklet highlights and celebrates the research work of graduates from taught Masters programmes in the School of Social Sciences and Law:

• the MA in Criminology

• the MA in Law

• the MA in Child, Family and Community Studies

• the International Masters in Early Childhood Education, co-delivered with Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (Norway) and the University of Malta (Malta).

The MA in Criminology and the MA in Law commenced in 2006 and the MA in Child, Family and Community Studies commenced in 2007. Each has quickly become established in its field as a …

Agenda: Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, Colorado Natural Resources, Energy And Environmental Law Review

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

On July 12 and 13, 2012, experts convened at Colorado Law to demonstrate the extent to which a model law could help address the global problem of indoor air pollution from inefficient cook stoves. The air pollution that results from inefficiently burning biomass as fuel for cooking has serious health and climatic consequences. The workshop produced two sets of Model Laws and commentaries to help nations solve the problem, and the commentaries were published in the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law Review.

Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations Workshop, July 12-13, 2012, Boulder, Colorado: Introduction, Lakshman Guruswamy

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

11 pages.

"This Essay introduces the framework for deliberation and legislative drafting undertaken at the workshop: Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations on July 12-13, 2012, in Boulder, Colorado. There are a number of fundamental premises upon which the workshop was based, and this Essay refers to the most salient among them."-- Excerpted from 24 Colo. Nat. Resources, Energy & Envtl. L. Rev. 319 (2013).

Supply Vs. Demand: Re-Entering America's Prison Population Into The Workforce, Marissa Leigh Enfield

Scripps Senior Theses

Because rejoining the workforce may prevent against ex-offender recidivism, securing gainful employment is one of the best indicators of successful societal reintegration for released prisoners. However, the stigma attached to a criminal history, combined with ex-prisoners’ lack of human capital, may threaten their ability to obtain a job. The present study examines hiring managers’ attitudes towards previously imprisoned offenders applying for positions in their workplace. Using a combination of brief, fictional applicant biographies and surveys, this mixed-groups factorial study explores how hiring managers (N= 28) consider gender, type of offense, and race when an ex-offender is assessed during the application …

Human Rights, Regulation, And National Security, Katina Michael, Simon Bronitt

Professor Katina Michael

Law disciplines technology, though it does so in a partial and incomplete way as reflected in the old adage that technology outstrips the capacity of law to regulate it. The rise of new technologies poses a significant threat to human rights – the pervasive use of CCTV (and now mobile CCTV), telecommunications interception, and low-cost audio-visual recording and tracking devices (some of these discreetly wearable), extend the power of the state and corporations significantly to intrude into the lives of citizens.

Location Privacy Under Dire Threat As Uberveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated with the arrival of smart phones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smart phone user down to 10 metres of accuracy on average. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on this emerging market by introducing novel pedestrian tracking technologies which can denote the geographic path of a mobile user. At the same time there is contention by law enforcement personnel over the need for a warrant process to track an individual in a public space. This paper considers the future of location …

The Place Of Law: The Role And Limits Of Law In Society, Larry Barnett

Larry D Barnett

The Place of Law addresses two questions that are critical to understanding law. Why is law an evidently universal, enduring institution in modern societies? And why do the concepts and doctrines of law differ between jurisdictions (states or nations) at one point in time and vary within a jurisdiction over time? In this stimulating volume, Barnett suggests answers to these questions, and in doing so, he challenges popular assumptions regarding law in structurally complex, technologically advanced, democratic societies. In particular, Barnett questions the assumption that social behaviors central to such societies are effectively controlled by law and the assumption that …

Men Still Visiting Brothels, Melanie Shapiro Esq, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Edzia Carvalho On Human Rights: Politics And Practice. Edited By Michael Goodhart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 455pp., Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights: Politics and Practice. Edited by Michael Goodhart. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 455pp.

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

Foreword: In Berle’S Footsteps, Charles R.T. O'Kelley

Seattle University Law Review

On the weekend of November 6–8, 2009, scholars from around the world gathered in Seattle for a symposium—In Berle’s Footsteps—celebrating the launch of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. As founding director of the Berle Center, I described our undertaking: “It is with a profound sense of obligation to the legacy that has been entrusted to my care, that I announce the launching of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law and Society. It is a privilege to follow in Berle’s footsteps.”

Opening Remarks, Chancellor William B. Chandler Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Law is, in many ways, a backwards-looking field. We litigate over facts that have already occurred, challenge deals that have already been signed, and apply rules of decision based on previously-established precedent or statutes already enacted. To the extent that this Center and the symposium reflect on Berle’s work, they too are an exercise in looking back. Indeed, some might say the establishment of a Center named in Berle’s honor is a monument to the past.

Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

The Modern Corporation & Private Property is a paradigm-shifting analysis of the modern corporation. The book is perhaps best known for the insights of Berle and Means about the separation of ownership from control and the consequences of that separation for the allocation of power within the corporation. The Berle and Means story focuses on the shareholder as the owner of the corporation. Berle and Means saw the mechanism of centralized management—in which the shareholder retains the economic interest but not the control rights associated with ownership—as threatening the conception of shareholder interests in terms of property rights. In particular, …

Rethinking The Separation Of Ownership From Management In American History, Kenneth Lipartito, Yumiko Morii

Seattle University Law Review

In <em>The Modern Corporation and Private Property</em>, Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means would use AT&T as a prime example of what they saw as a dangerous new trend, the replacement of ownership-based capitalism with giant corporations controlled by a small group of propertyless managers. Indeed, AT&T became Berle and Means’ favorite example. . . . As we shall see, however, the claim that AT&T was a leading example of the separation of ownership from management is incomplete. More importantly, the common interpretation of Berle and Means’ work is mistaken, placing the emphasis incorrectly on the number of shareholders and reading …