Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change

Galanter, Marc

doi:10.2307/3053023

Cited by 2,108 publications

(538 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This is not surprising. As Gramatikov and Porter (2011:172) observed, "power is the currency of disputes," with dispute resolution often occurring, as Galanter (1974) described, within a framework of myriad power imbalances. Moreover, the broader selfefficacy literature points to confidence being an important influence on behavior across a range of domains, including health behavior (e.g., Strecher et al 1986;Grembowski et al 1993), career development (e.g., Dawes et al 2000), and athletic performance, where "research has demonstrated self-confidence to be one of the most influential cognitive determinants of athletic performance" (Beattie et al 2011:184).…”

Section: A Measuring Legal Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a General Legal Confidence Scale: A First Implementation of the Rasch Measurement Model in Empirical Legal Studies

Pleasence¹,

Balmer²

2019

J Empirical Legal Studies

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Legal capability has long been of evident importance in our understanding of legal problem resolution behavior. Although legal capability remains a contested concept, there is much commonality between specifications. Some aspects are generic, while others—such as legal confidence—are particular to law. Such law‐specific measures as have been developed to date have been developed in an ad‐hoc fashion; with no attempts made to test psychometric properties, using either classical test theory or modern psychometric methods. This has been a shortcoming in the empirical legal field, weakening theoretical development and precluding reliable estimation of changes in levels of legal capability over time. In this article, we set out details of a study aimed at introducing new methods to scale development in the field of empirical legal studies based on the approaches that have evolved in other fields and the latest developments in psychometric modeling. Specifically, we set out details of the use of a specially designed item pool—based on an increasingly demanding legal scenario—and Rasch analysis to develop a general legal confidence scale. Once the 12 item pool items were reduced to a final set of six, this yielded a scale with good psychometric properties: a General Legal Confidence (GLC) Scale. The scale showed good overall fit, item fit, person fit, targeting, and internal consistency. All items had ordered thresholds, there was no response dependence, items were unidimensional, and there was no evidence of differential item functioning. The GLC scale constitutes an effective measure of general legal confidence, and demonstrates it is possible to arrive at robust and coherent law‐specific measures of legal capability through the careful design of questions and application of the latest psychometric modeling techniques.

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Section: A Measuring Legal Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a General Legal Confidence Scale: A First Implementation of the Rasch Measurement Model in Empirical Legal Studies

Pleasence¹,

Balmer²

2019

J Empirical Legal Studies

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“…The reliance on science in political conflicts might reproduce existing advantages for the 'haves' because industry and other powerful actors may exert control over debates (Brown et al 2004;Galanter 1974;Kinchy 2010;Sarewitz 2004). It also provided new possibilities for social movements that 'often adopt scientized repertories of contention, such as using counter-experts, publicizing suppressed studies, and carrying out their own participatory research' (Kinchy 2010: 3).…”

Section: Social Movements Science and Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

Making knowledge legitimate: transnational advocacy networks' campaigns against tobacco, infant formula and pharmaceuticals

Andía

Chorev

2017

Global Networks

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In this article, we examine three different cases in which health activists lobbied the World Health Organization and its member states to regulate the marketing practices of multinational companies. The campaign against tobacco manufacturers resulted in a binding treaty; the campaign against manufacturers of infant formula resulted in a non‐binding code of conduct; and the campaign against pharmaceutical manufacturers failed. We show that existing arguments regarding the success of global social movements and transnational advocacy networks fail to explain the divergent outcomes in these three cases. Instead, we argue that the effectiveness of global advocacy in these cases depended on the level of perceived legitimacy of the knowledge supporting the advocates' claims and on the prestige of the experts participating in the campaigns.

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“…Approaches and foci within legal mobilization are diverse and researchers in this field understand litigation as part of a complex, multifaceted relationship. Generally, studies of legal mobilization, while focusing on litigation, focus on it as one of multiple avenues of political action, resulting from complex and indeterminate strategic decision-making, and unequally accessible across different levels of society (McCann, 2008, 524-525) For example, studies of legal mobilization may rely heavily on the idea of the dispute pyramid, in which actual litigation is rare in comparison to the amount of claimable grievances (Miller and Sarat 1980), or on the observation that "repeat players" and "one-shotters" have differing levels of legal resources, thus making litigation a far less impactful source of policy change for some (Galanter, 1974). Both of these claims would cast litigation in a limited role in explaining some forms of political mobilization.…”

Section: Explore the Importance Of The Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Freedom in the Heartland: Rights Consciousness and the United States Supreme Court

Botello-Samson¹

2015

JPL

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In late 2013, the Kansas Board of Regents proposed a social media policy, a policy which the board eventually unanimously approved. The policy authorized "the chief executive officer of a state university…to suspend, dismiss or terminate from employment any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media." A strong and unified condemnation of the policy followed, led primarily by the faculty of those institutions and their various faculty governance organizations. This conflict between the free speech rights of academics and the governing authority of government and university administrations in the state of Kansas was neither the first nor last such conflict; U.S. courts had already established a doctrine over the free speech rights of public employees. Therefore, this conflict presents an opportunity to observe how the judicial establishment and definition of rights affects subsequent political conflict and discourse. The conflict over the social media policy adopted by the Kansas Board of Regents raises questions of whether the established judicial articulations of free speech in an academic setting shaped the efforts of Kansas faculty in opposition to this policy and the crafting of the policy itself.

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Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change

Cited by 2,108 publications

References 22 publications

Development of a General Legal Confidence Scale: A First Implementation of the Rasch Measurement Model in Empirical Legal Studies

Development of a General Legal Confidence Scale: A First Implementation of the Rasch Measurement Model in Empirical Legal Studies

Making knowledge legitimate: transnational advocacy networks' campaigns against tobacco, infant formula and pharmaceuticals

Academic Freedom in the Heartland: Rights Consciousness and the United States Supreme Court

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