A Field Evolves: Introduction to the Special Section on Law and Emotion

Abstract

Law and emotion has evolved into a vibrant and diverse field, drawing in legal scholars and interdisciplinary partners from across the social sciences, hard sciences, and humanities. This introduction to the special section on law and emotion traces the history and theoretical underpinnings of this movement and situates the special section within it. The insights of emotion research can help legal scholars and practitioners to better calibrate law to human realities and to foster a desired set of emotional experiences among law's subjects. Law, in turn, offers to researchers a forum within which to explore emotion in a dynamic and influential real-world setting. The introduction ends with a call to disciplined interdisciplinarity.

Justice, Emotion, and Belonging: Legal Consciousness in a Taiwanese Family Conflict

“…In legal situations, emotions have typically been characterized by legal consciousness scholars as disruptive to rational discourses and the orderly functioning of legal actors and institutions (Conley and O'Barr ; Merry ; Sarat and Felstiner ; Yngvesson ). Sociolegal researchers, too, have often focused their analysis of legal consciousness on deliberate, conscious thought processes and behaviors rather than the role of emotions and nonconscious cognition in shaping perceptions and decision making (Maroney ). Bandes (2012), however, discusses a body of research that explores how in institutional settings, such as formal courts with judges and jurors, the effect of emotion on legal decision making, as well as the effect of legal decision making on one's emotions, can be observed.…”

The Role of Emotion in Land Regulation: An Empirical Study of Online Advocacy in Authoritarian Asia

“…It is difficult to empirically observe the intersubjective processes that shape how emotion influences regulatory decisionmaking (Lange ; Maroney ). This study turns to discourse, both spoken and written, to gain insights into these subtle and opaque processes.…”

“…Reflecting on the limitations of this study, it is important to consider the indeterminate nature of official decisionmaking (Lange ; Maroney ). The dialogical interaction between officials and online advocates engenders uncertainty about which exogenous and endogenous variables motivated regulatory decisions and shaped intersubjective interpretations and outcomes.…”

“…Adding to this body of work, Felstiner et al's (: 632–37) seminal “naming, blaming and claiming” study revealed the critical role that emotions play in the emergence and regulation of disputes. This scholarship departed from previous legal studies by treating emotions as instruments that fine‐tune legal decisionmaking, rather than impulses that lead us astray (Abrams and Keren ; Maroney ).…”

“…They have also explored the roles emotions play in multiple legal contexts, including criminal law (Lynch and Haney ), contract law (Keren ), and family law (Huntington ). Leading researchers now argue that law and emotion scholarship has reached a critical juncture (Abrams and Keren ; Bandes and Blumenthal ; Maroney ). If emotion is integral to law, “the question becomes not whether emotion can have a role in law, but what kinds of emotions operate in particular contexts and what sort of a role do they play?” (Abrams and Keren : 2009).…”