Law and
Society POLITICAL SCIENCE 3271
University
of
Colorado-Boulder
Professor
Vanessa
Baird
Office
Ketchum 131D;
Email Vanessa.Baird@colorado.edu
Office
Hours: Tues-Thurs
1-3
(also by
appointment)
The
main purpose of this course is to introduce you to classical and
contemporary
theories of the integration of law and society.
At the end of the semester all students should have:
·
experience
with investigating the fundamental questions of law and society.
·
improved
their critical thinking skills.
·
engaged
in a critical analysis of important theoretical assumptions, claims,
and
arguments in a particular aspect of the existing theoretical literature
on a
topic in law and society.
·
developed
an appreciation for the political theories of law and society as an
intellectual enterprise.
You will
be required to read both the classics and the most recent scholarship
of law
and society. The lectures will provide
the necessary background information necessary to complement your readin
We will
spend a great deal of time discussing these issues in a seminar format,
which
means that everyone is expected to have done all the reading and each
person is
responsible for sharing their unique understanding of the topics. Each person’s contribution is highly valued
and necessary for a successful seminar.
You are required to
come to every class day, prepared by the reading for
discussion. We will spend a great deal
of time discussing
these issues in a seminar format, which means that everyone is expected
to have
done all the readin
There are two exams: a
midterm and a final, each worth 25%
of your grade and there will be one 12-15 page research paper (25%).
10% of
your grade for your final paper will be based on a three minute oral
presentation of your paper. These
papers, assignments and exams and their respective topics will be
discussed
during the course of the semester.
There are many
resources
on the website (http://sobek.colorado.edu/~bairdv/)
that can be used in preparing exams and the final paper.
You are expected to
keep a copy of your work in case
something is lost. Incompletes are
strongly discouraged by the College and are only given for non-academic
reasons.
Please
email me or come by my office at any time to discuss issues with the
class. I am usually there and I usually
answer emails from students within minutes of receiving them. I genuinely look forward to discussing issues
in the class with students. I encourage
you to use email or office visits for any issues related to the class. On the other hand, I do not check voice
mail.
In this class, we will
be dealing
with a great number of sensitive issues.
I encourage feedback on my teaching style and the materials,
both
anonymously by email and otherwise, for any reason at any time, as long
as it
is respectful. Along those same lines, I
always encourage students to disagree with anything I say at any time,
again,
as long as it is respectful. I expect
all students to treat each other with respect as well.
If I feel that you have treated me or any
other student with disrespect, I will ask you to meet me in my office. If you continue at any other time to treat me
or other students with disrespect, I will ask you to leave the
classroom. Potentially, this kind of
behavior could result
in being dropped from the class. If you
have any questions about my policies, or the University’s policy
regarding
classroom behavior, do not hesitate to bring it up in class or talk to
me about
it in my office. The University’s
general Code of Conduct can be found at the following website: http://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/judicialaffairs/code.html
and its code of conduct guidelines for the classroom can be found at
the
following website: http://www.colorado.edu/facultyaffairs/deskref/part13.html#Classroom_Behavior_Policy_And_Procedures
Campus policy
regarding religious observances requires
that faculty make every effort to reasonably and fairly deal with all
students
who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled
exams,
assignments or required attendance. See full details at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/fac_relig.html
I am
required by law to report to university officials any sexual harassment
that I
observe or that is reported to me. The
university’s sexual harassment policy can be found at the following
website. http://www.cusys.edu/~policies/Personnel/sexharass.html
All the
work you do in this course is expected to be your own. Absolutely no
cheating
or plagiarism (using someone else’s words or ideas without proper
citation)
will be tolerated. Any time that you
consult outside sources, you MUST cite those sources.
If your consult outside sources without
citation, even if you are not citing the sources directly, this
constitutes
cheating. Failure to put quotation marks
around direct quotations constitutes plagiarism and will always result
in an F
for the class. Misattribution of sources
(citing certain quotations or ideas as coming from a source other than
the one
that they come from) will result in a lower grade.
Any cases of cheating or plagiarism will be
reported to the Office of the Dean of Students.
If you cheat, you will fail the course.
Please review the University’s policy
regarding academic integrity: http://www.colorado.edu/policies/acadinteg.html
The
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (
Marcus, George E.,
John L. Sullivan, Elizabeth
Theiss-Morse. 1995. With
Malice Toward Some: How People Make
Civil Liberties Judgments.
McCann, Michael and William Haltom. 2004. Distorting
The Law: Politics, Media, And The Litigation Crisis (The
Epp, Charles.
1998. The Rights
Revolution.
The
purpose of the first part of this class is to understand the different
philosophical
foundations of the rule of law. The
fundamental question that we will be dealing with is whether the law is
natural
or socially constructed. Further, does
it and/or should it depend on the cultural context?
We will read about a hypothetical criminal
trial and talk about how the different philosophies of law would
resolve this
trial.
|
Date |
Topic
|
Assignment |
||
|
Tuesday |
August 28 |
Introduction |
|
|
|
Thursday |
August 30 |
A Trial |
The Case of the
Speluncean Explorers, Lon D. Fuller (on webpage) |
|
|
Tuesday |
September 04 |
Justice |
Selection from The Republic (on
webpage) |
|
|
Thursday |
September 06 |
Natural Law and
Natural Right |
Natural Law v. Natural Rights: What Are They? How
Do They Differ?, Randy E. Barnett (on webpage) |
|
|
Tuesday |
September 11 |
Natural Rights? |
Critical Perspectives
on Rights, Conference on Critical
Legal Studies Symposium (on webpage) |
|
The next portion of
the class has
to do with the rule of law and the psychological support for civil
liberties
and rights. In the previous portion of
the class, we will have discussed the problems endemic to human
societies – we
found that human beings disagree about what is comprises a good society. Therefore, in forming a society, we must
develop some manner of getting to some good, or at least preventing
what we
agree is bad. There are several ways of
dealing with this: ensuring constitutionally that there are realms that
are
unfettered by politics (rule of law), ensuring equal access to the
political
process (political tolerance or the accepting that even the most vile
of
political opponents ought to have the benefit of freedom of speech),
and a fair
judicial process. We will look at the
relationship between our empirical observations of human psychology and
these
three aspects of our political systems.
The two articles dealing with the rule of law juxtapose the
importance
of psychological or symbolic attachments to the law (Gibson) with the
importance of cost benefit analysis (Weingast) in maintaining the rule
of
law. With Malice Toward Some, (Marcus, et al.) shows how people
form their attitudes about allocating civil liberties to individuals
and groups
that they do not like.
|
Thursday |
September 13 |
The Rule of Law: Costs
and Benefits |
The Rule of Law: Weingast (on web
page) |
|
Tuesday |
September 18 |
The Rule of Law:
Psychological Attachments |
The
Soviet Putsch: Gibson (on web page) |
|
Thursday |
September 20 |
Causes of Political
Tolerance |
With Malice Toward Some Chapter 2 |
|
Tuesday |
September 25 |
Political Tolerance
and Contemporary Information |
With Malice Toward Some, Chapter 7 |
|
Thursday |
September 27 |
Political Tolerance
and Personality |
With Malice Toward Some, Chapters 8 and 10 |
People,
in fact, seem to feel more strongly about their legal wrongs than about
the
wrongs inflicted on them by violence. In
the first case they think they are being outdone by an equal, in the
second
case they are being compelled by a superior (Thucydides).
Legitimacy, the
voluntary
relationship between the citizen and the state, depends on public
perceptions
of the law, the state or institutions.
For legal institutions with no formal power to enforce
compliance,
legitimacy is that much more important.
Because of this, it is important to look at what drives people
to
believe that a law or the legal process is legitimate.
Gibson, Caldeira and Baird look at the
psychological sources of perceptions of legitimacy in eighteen
different
countries. Huo, Smith, Tyler and Lind
look at the differences between minorities and majorities in what they
expect
from the legal system in terms of procedural fairness.
Skitka looks at how justice is intertwined
with our identity.
|
Tuesday |
October 02 |
Paper Discussion Day |
Paper topic Due |
|
Thursday |
October 04 |
The Legitimacy of
National High Courts |
On the Legitimacy of National High
Courts; Gibson, Caldeira and Baird (on website) |
|
Tuesday |
October 09 |
Majorities, Minorities
and Procedural Justice |
Subgroup
Identification and Justice, Huo, Smith, Tyler and Lind (on website) |
|
Thursday |
October 11 |
Procedural Justice and
Identity |
“What does a dog owe
to a dog, and
a horse to a horse? Nothing, no animal depends on his like; but man
having
received the ray of divinity called reason, what is the result? Slavery
throughout almost the whole world.” Voltaire (1694-1778)
The next portion of
the class
will deal with the use of the law to achieve economic goods as well as
social
liberty and equality. We will also read
an article about the history of the institutional causes of economic
prosperity. We will discuss the way that
a legal system can deal with various aspects of culture that can lead
to
greater economic efficiency.
|
Tuesday |
October 16 |
The Political Economy
of Legal Culture |
Paper Outline and
Bibliography Due; Law.
Economics and Norms, Eric A. Posner, (on website) |
|
Thursday |
October 18 |
Building Fences:
Property Rights and Prosperity |
Constitutions and Commitment; North and
Weingast (on website) |
|
Tuesday |
October 23 |
Economic Regulation |
Review
of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (on website) |
|
Thursday |
October 25 |
Midterm |
Midterm |
“There is no such
thing as justice--in or out of court.”
-- Clarence Seward Darrow
The
next part of the class deals with using the legal system to obtain
justice. Hamilton and Sander’s Everyday
Justice develops cultural and
contextual theories of why people attribute differing levels of legal
responsibility. Gilliam and Iyengar deal
with how people use information from the media to form their opinions
about
criminal law and punishments. Baird and
Javeline’s work show how people who are not usually accustomed to bein
|
Tuesday |
October 30 |
Final Paper discussion |
No assigned reading |
|
Thursday |
November 01 |
Politics of Retribution |
Everyday Justice, Chapter 1 |
|
Tuesday |
November 06 |
Context and Retribution |
Everyday Justice, Chapters 4 and 6 |
|
Thursday |
November 08 |
Culture and Retribution |
Everyday Justice, Chapters 10 and 11 Final Paper drafts Due
(optional) |
|
Tuesday |
November 13 |
Judicial Pioneers |
Judicial Pioneers (on website) |
|
Thursday |
November 15 |
Majorities, Minorities
and Punishments |
Prime Suspects, Gilliam and Iyengar (on
website) |
“The law will never
make men
free; it is men who have got to make the law free.” - Henry David
Thoreau,
The next section deals
with the
effect of interest groups and the litigant community on courts, both
here in
the
We will also be
discussing the relationship
between the media and tort reform. Are Americans outrageously litigious?
|
Tuesday |
November 27 |
Rights Revolution, |
Rights Revolution:
Chapters 4. |
|
Thursday |
November 29 |
Rights Revolution, |
Rights Revolution: Chapters 5 and 7. |
|
Tuesday |
December 04 |
Oral presentation |
Oral presentation |
|
Thursday |
December 06 |
Oral presentation |
Oral presentation |
|
Tuesday |
December 11 |
Tort Reform |
Distorting The Law, Chapters 1 and 2 |
|
Thursday |
December 13 |
Tort Reform |
Distorting The Law Chapters 6 and 8 |
You should find a
research topic dealing with law and
society. Everyone’s research question is
the same: What causes ______ to vary/change (across people, geographic
units,
time)? You should review the academic
literature associated with previously found explanation for what makes
your
____ vary/change (across people, geographic units, time)?
From that literature, you should deduce your
own theory from an idea that comes from a lacuna (something missing) in
that
literature. You should develop a
research design that would answer the question and explain how you
intend to go
about doing this research and the implications of the findings that you
expect.
I.
Research Question – First Sentence or
Two. What causes ______?
II.
Why the Question is
Important – 2 pages.
III.
Literature Review – 6-8 pages. This is the bulk of the paper.
The outline of this section is a list of causes
of the political phenomenon you are interested in.
You should highlight and resolve to the best
of your ability any contradictions to the literature.
Think of this part of the paper that is
making the argument that YOUR study needs to be done.
Each section will be an argument about the
manner and extent to which that particular concept causes your
political
phenomenon of interest. Be sure to
consider both sides of the argument. You
will need to deal with all relevant counterarguments.
Here is an example of
an outline of the literature review:
What causes the
tendency to litigate to vary across
people?
A.
Political
disadvantage
B.
Perception
that courts are fair
C.
Social
networks
D.
Anger
E.
Self
esteem
F.
Severity
of the grievance
G.
Attribution
of blame of government
H.
Resources
(income, wealth, information, education)
For each bullet point,
you will mention what the
literature has to say about whether this concept causes a tendency to
litigate.
You will discuss many different scholars and their findings in terms of
how they
relate to your conclusions about the manner and extent to which each
concept is
a cause of your political phenomenon of interest.
IV.
Summary of Literature
Review:
Implications for your Research.
One or two paragraphs. The summary of
the literature review should introduce your research design. How are you going to contribute to what we
already know?
V.
Research Design. 2-3 pages.
VI.
Discussion of the
Implications of
Expected Findings:
You should answer the question: What difference does it make for our
understanding of law and society, democracy, politics… that we now know
what we
are able to conclude from your research?
2 pages.
You will be graded on
the rigor of your discussion of the
literature and on the internal consistency of your arguments. I will pay close attention to whether you have
considered all potential counterarguments or inconsistencies presented
by the
literature in your discussion. You will
also be graded on the creativity of the research design as well as your
ability
to answer the question: what difference does this research make in its
contribution to previous literature? The
answer to this question enables you to connect the first parts of the
paper
with the last.