The need to protect the rights of children and young people in detention is the subject of a recent United Nations study (Nowak 2019) and is highlighted by national and international controversies. This article examines the role of external monitoring in preventing the ill-treatment of children and young people in detention. Australia has until recently shown limited interest in protecting the rights of people in detention, but, in 2017, it finally ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (OPCAT). This article examines Australia’s steps to ensuring the effective monitoring of the rights of people in detention, specifically the rights of children and young people in criminal justice detention. As a federal state, Australia must establish a comprehensive network of monitoring bodies constituting OPCAT’s National Preventive Mechanism across nine jurisdictions and with a range of existing monitoring bodies. This article highlights the importance of the “monitoring of monitoring” to ensure the fair treatment of children and young people in correctional detention. It identifies factors relevant to the effectiveness and credibility of child-centered monitoring processes and analyzes the opportunities for maximizing both in the Australian context and globally.
{"title":"Protecting the Rights of Children and Young People in Detention: Evaluating Credibility and Effectiveness of Human Rights Monitoring Bodies","authors":"Bronwyn Naylor","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.72","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.72","url":null,"abstract":"The need to protect the rights of children and young people in detention is the subject of a recent United Nations study (Nowak 2019) and is highlighted by national and international controversies. This article examines the role of external monitoring in preventing the ill-treatment of children and young people in detention. Australia has until recently shown limited interest in protecting the rights of people in detention, but, in 2017, it finally ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (OPCAT). This article examines Australia’s steps to ensuring the effective monitoring of the rights of people in detention, specifically the rights of children and young people in criminal justice detention. As a federal state, Australia must establish a comprehensive network of monitoring bodies constituting OPCAT’s National Preventive Mechanism across nine jurisdictions and with a range of existing monitoring bodies. This article highlights the importance of the “monitoring of monitoring” to ensure the fair treatment of children and young people in correctional detention. It identifies factors relevant to the effectiveness and credibility of child-centered monitoring processes and analyzes the opportunities for maximizing both in the Australian context and globally.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Because states must rebut the presumption of responsibility, all prisoner deaths must be investigated. These investigations frequently illustrate the tip of an iceberg of rights abuses and systemic hazards but have largely escaped analysis in prison-monitoring scholarship. Focusing on suicides, we assemble some of the first evidence illustrating how the staff of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who investigate prisoner deaths in England and Wales, seek to prevent further deaths. Ombudsman investigations are widely regarded as ineffective, yet there are competing constructions regarding why this is and what could be done to improve outcomes. As a result of organizational norms and constraints, ombudsman staff have offered narrow accounts of prisoner suicides, focusing on the failure of frontline staff to comply with prison policies. By contrast, prison staff and coroners have focused on systemic hazards or “accidents waiting to happen,” including imprisoning people with severe mental illness, illegal drugs, unsafe facilities, and inadequate staffing. These differing constructions lock penal actors into an unproductive cycle of blame shifting that contributes to high suicide numbers. We reconceptualize prisoner deaths as occurring at the intersection of systemic hazards, organizational contexts, and individual errors. We hope that this reconceptualization facilitates broader investigations that are more likely to prevent prisoner deaths.
{"title":"(Re)constructing Prisoner Death Investigations: A Case Study of Suicide Investigations from England and Wales","authors":"Philippa Tomczak, Kaitlyn Quinn, Catherine Traynor, Lucy Wainwright","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.75","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.75","url":null,"abstract":"Because states must rebut the presumption of responsibility, all prisoner deaths must be investigated. These investigations frequently illustrate the tip of an iceberg of rights abuses and systemic hazards but have largely escaped analysis in prison-monitoring scholarship. Focusing on suicides, we assemble some of the first evidence illustrating how the staff of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who investigate prisoner deaths in England and Wales, seek to prevent further deaths. Ombudsman investigations are widely regarded as ineffective, yet there are competing constructions regarding why this is and what could be done to improve outcomes. As a result of organizational norms and constraints, ombudsman staff have offered narrow accounts of prisoner suicides, focusing on the failure of frontline staff to comply with prison policies. By contrast, prison staff and coroners have focused on systemic hazards or “accidents waiting to happen,” including imprisoning people with severe mental illness, illegal drugs, unsafe facilities, and inadequate staffing. These differing constructions lock penal actors into an unproductive cycle of blame shifting that contributes to high suicide numbers. We reconceptualize prisoner deaths as occurring at the intersection of systemic hazards, organizational contexts, and individual errors. We hope that this reconceptualization facilitates broader investigations that are more likely to prevent prisoner deaths.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We start this special issue with two perspectives. First, that the sociological study of crime and law often intersects with the study of inequality, power, the state, and life chances. Second, that the study of crime and law are deeply interconnected—institutionally, politically, and culturally. Legal institutions build on normative ideas, organizations, careers, and power to govern, to criminalize, and to punish (and, conversely, to ignore or absolve), and everyday understandings of crime are deeply tied to cultural understandings of legality, perceptions of justice and injustice, and hopes for everyday life. Law and crime are thus dynamically tied to social aspirations, fears, and divisions, and are political and social contests over what unites and what divides societies.
{"title":"Streets, Suites, and States: John Hagan’s Contributions to the Study of Law, Power, and Inequality","authors":"Ron Levi, Traci Burch, Robert L. Nelson","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.60","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.60","url":null,"abstract":"We start this special issue with two perspectives. First, that the sociological study of crime and law often intersects with the study of inequality, power, the state, and life chances. Second, that the study of crime and law are deeply interconnected—institutionally, politically, and culturally. Legal institutions build on normative ideas, organizations, careers, and power to govern, to criminalize, and to punish (and, conversely, to ignore or absolve), and everyday understandings of crime are deeply tied to cultural understandings of legality, perceptions of justice and injustice, and hopes for everyday life. Law and crime are thus dynamically tied to social aspirations, fears, and divisions, and are political and social contests over what unites and what divides societies.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Socio-legal scholars these days devote themselves routinely to the study of international law. It was not always thus. In the late twentieth century, no more than a handful of law-and-society scholars asked themselves how international law worked. Even fewer ventured into the field. John Hagan was one of those who did and the first sociologist to study empirically—and rigorously—what we now call international criminal law. In this article, I use Hagan’s oeuvre to reflect on the intellectual history of international legal scholarship in the twenty-first century. I argue that Hagan brought three things to the study of international law: criminology, methodology, and ideology. I trace each of these contributions in detail, assess their intellectual import, and relate them to alternative ways of seeing international law. The story I tell is of a pioneering scholar who charted an empirical path toward the sociology of international law, but whose moral compass—acquired during his socialization in the Vietnam era—also occasionally blinded him to the dark sides of virtue.
{"title":"Toward a Sociology of International Law: John Hagan and Beyond","authors":"Jens Meierhenrich","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.54","url":null,"abstract":"Socio-legal scholars these days devote themselves routinely to the study of international law. It was not always thus. In the late twentieth century, no more than a handful of law-and-society scholars asked themselves how international law worked. Even fewer ventured into the field. John Hagan was one of those who did and the first sociologist to study empirically—and rigorously—what we now call international criminal law. In this article, I use Hagan’s oeuvre to reflect on the intellectual history of international legal scholarship in the twenty-first century. I argue that Hagan brought three things to the study of international law: criminology, methodology, and ideology. I trace each of these contributions in detail, assess their intellectual import, and relate them to alternative ways of seeing international law. The story I tell is of a pioneering scholar who charted an empirical path toward the sociology of international law, but whose moral compass—acquired during his socialization in the Vietnam era—also occasionally blinded him to the dark sides of virtue.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Core contributions from John Hagan’s scholarship on genocide are at stake in this article. First, this article examines, for the Rwandan genocide, the applicability of Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond’s multi-level causal model of genocide, developed in Darfur and the Crime of Genocide. Asking how causal factors and processes highlighted in that model play out in scholarship on the Rwandan genocide, it moves toward answering the question of external validity versus historical specificity. Second, the article examines, again with a focus on Rwanda, the relationship between social scientific explanation and judicial thought. While it highlights—in line with the first author’s previous work—how judicial narratives address or select out core factors highlighted in the Darfur model, the article focuses—in line with Hagan’s Justice in the Balkans—on the question of what knowledge social science can nevertheless gain from court proceedings. An analysis of a sample of cases processed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda identifies overlaps with social science analyses, but it also highlights distinctions.
在这篇文章中,约翰·哈根(John Hagan)关于种族灭绝的学术研究的核心贡献岌岌可危。首先,本文考察了Hagan和Wenona raymond - richmond在达尔富尔和种族灭绝罪中提出的种族灭绝多层次因果模型对卢旺达种族灭绝的适用性。询问该模型中强调的因果因素和过程如何在卢旺达种族灭绝的学术研究中发挥作用,它转向回答外部有效性与历史特殊性的问题。其次,本文再次以卢旺达为重点,考察了社会科学解释与司法思想之间的关系。虽然它与第一作者之前的工作一致,强调了司法叙事如何处理或选择达尔富尔模式中突出的核心因素,但这篇文章与哈根的《巴尔干地区的司法》一致,关注了社会科学可以从法庭诉讼中获得哪些知识的问题。对卢旺达问题国际刑事法庭(International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)处理的案例样本的分析发现了与社会科学分析的重叠之处,但它也强调了区别。
{"title":"Darfur Model, Rwanda, and the ICTR: John Hagan’s Sociology of Genocide Continued","authors":"Joachim J. Savelsberg, Brooke B. Chambers","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2022.62","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2022.62","url":null,"abstract":"Core contributions from John Hagan’s scholarship on genocide are at stake in this article. First, this article examines, for the Rwandan genocide, the applicability of Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond’s multi-level causal model of genocide, developed in <jats:italic>Darfur and the Crime of Genocide</jats:italic>. Asking how causal factors and processes highlighted in that model play out in scholarship on the Rwandan genocide, it moves toward answering the question of external validity versus historical specificity. Second, the article examines, again with a focus on Rwanda, the relationship between social scientific explanation and judicial thought. While it highlights—in line with the first author’s previous work—how judicial narratives address or select out core factors highlighted in the Darfur model, the article focuses—in line with Hagan’s <jats:italic>Justice in the Balkans—</jats:italic>on the question of what knowledge social science can nevertheless gain from court proceedings. An analysis of a sample of cases processed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda identifies overlaps with social science analyses, but it also highlights distinctions.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Who Are the Criminals?, John Hagan argues that legislators use “crisis framing” to influence how the general public thinks about crime. President Ronald Reagan used reports of a drug use epidemic fueled by organized crime as part of his crisis framing. In 1984, he signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act (CCCA) as part of his “war on drugs.” The CCCA allowed law enforcement to use civil asset forfeiture (CAF) to keep or sell property that it suspected was connected to illegal activity. State legislators followed suit and passed their own CAF laws. Some critics argue that law enforcements’ use of CAF has disproportionately targeted minority populations. We draw on racial threat theory to examine connections between the size of minority populations and the use of CAF in California. Our analysis uses nineteen years of CAF cases filed with the California Attorney General’s Office. Consistent with racial threat theory, we find a positive association between the number of forfeitures in a jurisdiction and a logged measure of the percentage of Black residents, net of crime, and other jurisdiction attributes. Our results support concerns that law enforcement has incorporated CAF as a technique used disproportionately against some minority communities.
{"title":"California Civil Asset Forfeiture and the Policing of Minority Residents","authors":"Jared Joseph, Bill McCarthy","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2022.84","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2022.84","url":null,"abstract":"In <jats:italic>Who Are the Criminals?</jats:italic>, John Hagan argues that legislators use “crisis framing” to influence how the general public thinks about crime. President Ronald Reagan used reports of a drug use epidemic fueled by organized crime as part of his crisis framing. In 1984, he signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act (CCCA) as part of his “war on drugs.” The CCCA allowed law enforcement to use civil asset forfeiture (CAF) to keep or sell property that it suspected was connected to illegal activity. State legislators followed suit and passed their own CAF laws. Some critics argue that law enforcements’ use of CAF has disproportionately targeted minority populations. We draw on racial threat theory to examine connections between the size of minority populations and the use of CAF in California. Our analysis uses nineteen years of CAF cases filed with the California Attorney General’s Office. Consistent with racial threat theory, we find a positive association between the number of forfeitures in a jurisdiction and a logged measure of the percentage of Black residents, net of crime, and other jurisdiction attributes. Our results support concerns that law enforcement has incorporated CAF as a technique used disproportionately against some minority communities.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
American Vietnam War resisters participated in one of the largest politically motivated emigrations in US history. John Hagan provided the most comprehensive study of American war resisters living in Canada in his award-winning book Northern Passage. Hagan documented how law resistance intersected with social movement participation and sustained activism. In this article, I extend Hagan’s life course analysis of law resistance by interviewing fifty-one adult children of the war resisters originally in Hagan’s sample, supplemented with eighteen surveys completed by the parents about their child, producing eighty-two distinct parent-child relationship pairs. This unique intergenerational study finds that American war resister parents radically influenced their offspring’s activism. The adult children of war resisters highly resemble their parents’ political views and activism. Further, I elaborate on the concept of a participation identity to suggest four fundamental mechanisms that facilitate activism of the offspring of war resisters: (1) resonates with their identities and life histories; (2) inspired by their parents’ activism; (3) adoption of an injustice frame; and (4) optimism that social movements are effective vehicles of social change. This research demonstrates that American war resister children in Canada are both attitudinally disposed to, and structurally available for, activism.
{"title":"Children of War Resisters: Intergenerational Transmission of Activism, Political Orientation, Injustice Frames, and Law Resistance","authors":"Wenona Rymond-Richmond","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.59","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.59","url":null,"abstract":"American Vietnam War resisters participated in one of the largest politically motivated emigrations in US history. John Hagan provided the most comprehensive study of American war resisters living in Canada in his award-winning book <jats:italic>Northern Passage</jats:italic>. Hagan documented how law resistance intersected with social movement participation and sustained activism. In this article, I extend Hagan’s life course analysis of law resistance by interviewing fifty-one adult children of the war resisters originally in Hagan’s sample, supplemented with eighteen surveys completed by the parents about their child, producing eighty-two distinct parent-child relationship pairs. This unique intergenerational study finds that American war resister parents radically influenced their offspring’s activism. The adult children of war resisters highly resemble their parents’ political views and activism. Further, I elaborate on the concept of a participation identity to suggest four fundamental mechanisms that facilitate activism of the offspring of war resisters: (1) resonates with their identities and life histories; (2) inspired by their parents’ activism; (3) adoption of an injustice frame; and (4) optimism that social movements are effective vehicles of social change. This research demonstrates that American war resister children in Canada are both attitudinally disposed to, and structurally available for, activism.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A growing body of research suggests that contemporary law firms face challenges with the retention of legal talent—especially women and racialized lawyers. Yet, we know little about the conditions that prompt lawyers to leave law firms or where they go after leaving. This article builds on the scholarship of John Hagan, emphasizing the role of social capital in law firm culture, and work by Emmanuel Lazega, tracing dimensions of law firm collegiality—both with implications for lawyers’ careers within and beyond law firms. I draw on data from a twenty-seven-year longitudinal survey of Canadian lawyers. Using piecewise exponential survival models, I examine organizational, cultural, and individual factors that may encourage mobility from law firms. The study reveals a pervasive gender difference that is not explained by human capital, organizational characteristics, or individual traits. Results also demonstrate the importance of social capital and firm culture—specifically, the presence of workplace policies of flexible scheduling, lawyers’ sense of a good match with their firm, their satisfaction with status rewards, and finally, the role of mentors—in shaping the flow of legal talent from law firms to various job destinations.
{"title":"Revolving Doors: Social Dimensions of Law Firm Culture and Pathways out of Firms","authors":"Fiona M. Kay","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2022.95","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2022.95","url":null,"abstract":"A growing body of research suggests that contemporary law firms face challenges with the retention of legal talent—especially women and racialized lawyers. Yet, we know little about the conditions that prompt lawyers to leave law firms or where they go after leaving. This article builds on the scholarship of John Hagan, emphasizing the role of social capital in law firm culture, and work by Emmanuel Lazega, tracing dimensions of law firm collegiality—both with implications for lawyers’ careers within and beyond law firms. I draw on data from a twenty-seven-year longitudinal survey of Canadian lawyers. Using piecewise exponential survival models, I examine organizational, cultural, and individual factors that may encourage mobility from law firms. The study reveals a pervasive gender difference that is not explained by human capital, organizational characteristics, or individual traits. Results also demonstrate the importance of social capital and firm culture—specifically, the presence of workplace policies of flexible scheduling, lawyers’ sense of a good match with their firm, their satisfaction with status rewards, and finally, the role of mentors—in shaping the flow of legal talent from law firms to various job destinations.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using preliminary observations from three parallel projects that employ a range of methods (network and content analysis, surveys, focus groups, and interviews), this article traces the experience of navigating different kinds of identity as useful capital within the legal profession. Identity is not the first kind of non-economic capital to influence professional navigation, but it is distinct in that it is owned and deployed primarily by minority actors. Adding to scholarship that has located the extensions for identity as capital, three interrelated contributions follow from this research. First, it reveals the prevalence of a diffuse field of diversity consciousness where, regardless of outcome, there is a sense that diversity is useful capital. Second, despite being notionally useful, these multi-method sources reveal the ways in which navigating such capital is simultaneously complicated for both actors within visible (e.g. race and perceived gender) and invisible (e.g. some disability, genderfluidity, and religion) identity categories. The isomorphic diversity posturing by organizations fosters a system where being a minority is seen as an advantage, but inclusion feels like accommodation either because it demands certain portrayals of precarity or because it leaves individuals unsure of their worth beyond the expected performance of their identity. As a result, even though the new version of the ideal professional norm might valorize identity as capital, it continues to serve organizations rather than individuals. Finally, these data make the methodological case for the usefulness of the periphery as an analytical vantage point to assess systemic inequalities in legal profession research.
{"title":"Rethinking Inclusion: Ideal Minorities, Inclusion Cultures, and Identity Capitals in the Legal Profession","authors":"Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2022.96","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2022.96","url":null,"abstract":"Using preliminary observations from three parallel projects that employ a range of methods (network and content analysis, surveys, focus groups, and interviews), this article traces the experience of navigating different kinds of identity as useful capital within the legal profession. Identity is not the first kind of non-economic capital to influence professional navigation, but it is distinct in that it is owned and deployed primarily by minority actors. Adding to scholarship that has located the extensions for identity as capital, three interrelated contributions follow from this research. First, it reveals the prevalence of a diffuse field of diversity consciousness where, regardless of outcome, there is a sense that diversity is useful capital. Second, despite being notionally useful, these multi-method sources reveal the ways in which navigating such capital is simultaneously complicated for both actors within visible (e.g. race and perceived gender) and invisible (e.g. some disability, genderfluidity, and religion) identity categories. The isomorphic diversity posturing by organizations fosters a system where being a minority is seen as an advantage, but inclusion feels like accommodation either because it demands certain portrayals of precarity or because it leaves individuals unsure of their worth beyond the expected performance of their identity. As a result, even though the new version of the ideal professional norm might valorize identity as capital, it continues to serve organizations rather than individuals. Finally, these data make the methodological case for the usefulness of the periphery as an analytical vantage point to assess systemic inequalities in legal profession research.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay evaluates the current United Nations approach to preventing and punishing genocide by considering micro-level research on behavioral variation in genocide and proposing two ideas for intervention. The first idea extends the theory that economic inequality explains people’s decisions to kill or not kill in genocide and suggests specific economic remedies to intervene in ongoing violence. The second idea extends the theory that local authorities shape civilians’ decision making about violence and suggests specific ways to bolster moderate meso-level authorities to mitigate violence. The essay concludes by considering how social science research and theory can practically impact international law concerning genocide.
{"title":"Genocide: Theories of Participation and Opportunities for Intervention","authors":"Aliza Luft","doi":"10.1017/lsi.2023.43","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.43","url":null,"abstract":"This essay evaluates the current United Nations approach to preventing and punishing genocide by considering micro-level research on behavioral variation in genocide and proposing two ideas for intervention. The first idea extends the theory that economic inequality explains people’s decisions to kill or not kill in genocide and suggests specific economic remedies to intervene in ongoing violence. The second idea extends the theory that local authorities shape civilians’ decision making about violence and suggests specific ways to bolster moderate meso-level authorities to mitigate violence. The essay concludes by considering how social science research and theory can practically impact international law concerning genocide.","PeriodicalId":501328,"journal":{"name":"Law & Social Inquiry","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}