Under what organizational conditions are police officers more likely to use lethal force against racial minority suspects in the United States? Using identity and institutional theories, we find that perceived legitimacy is likely to determine how street-level bureaucrats and managers define their identities and influence the disproportionate killings of minorities in the United States. In sum, we show that bureaucrats, either street-level White police officers or their managers, assume different identities, either social or role identity, depending on the organizational contexts, visibility of their actions to the public, and the following perceived legitimacy to the public by utilizing institutional theory. These findings reveal when racial disparities are likely to rise, driven by the interplay among officer and suspect race, leadership dynamics, and the bureaucratic pursuit of legitimacy. We discuss theoretical and practical implications regarding police use of force in state-citizen interactions.
This work seeks to contribute to the literature exploring the role of courts in democratic erosion and autocratization. Accordingly, I explore the dynamics of attacks against the judiciary and how this set into motion the erosion of democracy. My argument is that populists, leaders with autocratic tendencies or "false democrats" want to capture the courts to legally concentrate power on the ruling party. They do so by taking over the judiciary through (a) rhetorical attacks that weaken the already fragile public legitimacy of the courts and (b) legal attacks (institutional reforms) to dismantle judicial independence, technically removing a veto player and triggering democratic erosion. To develop this argument, I use the case of Mexico, a recent example that illuminates how both rhetorical and institutional attacks unfold to subvert judicial independence, capture the judiciary, and erode democracy. I develop this argument using two original databases.
ABSTRACT In this article we analyze case studies of abortion and marriage equality to identify how judicial discretion and signaling prodded conservative investments in new movement organizations charged with overcoming scientific expertise barriers that had previously stymied conservative policy victories. In doing so, we seek to understand how US judicial commitments to adversarial legalism shape both the incidence of, and responses to, expertise barriers, and how these responses can nullify the power of scientific expertise in “culture war” court cases. We also suggest that the Right's responses to expertise barriers in these cases reflect both their access to significant resources and their tendency to build new institutions instead of working within established ones. Combined, this analysis highlights an understudied, and yet potent form of conservative response to evidence‐based civil rights logics that are central to contemporary culture war cases—particularly those reviewed by the US Supreme Court. It demonstrates the importance of institutional protocols in setting the stage for targeted organizational investments in the American Right's fight against progressive rights.
ABSTRACT This article identifies three central characteristics of collateral consequences policy in the United States, employing a case study of laws limiting the ability of people with conviction records to serve on juries. Collateral consequences, or collateral sanctions, restrict the rights and privileges of people with criminal histories to engage in political, economic, and social activities, and appear to be more severe in the United States than in other democracies. But in the U.S., such policies generally do not impose clear rules on a discrete class of citizens. Instead, they are textually complex , based on laws featuring variation, ambiguity, and sometimes outright indeterminacy. Profoundly shaped by implementation, particularly interpretive decisions made by state and local officials, such policies are procedurally constituted . These two characteristics bring about a third: collateral sanctions enact multiple forms of exclusion . They generate misinformation that appears to prevent many eligible people from participating; they categorically bar some people with backgrounds; and they exclude others only after individualized discretionary evaluation. Better understanding these three attributes of collateral sanctions will help scholars and policymakers appraise their impact more effectively, deepens normative critiques, and points to avenues for reform.
ABSTRACT We examine the reception of Russia's post‐2012 conservative turn by the country's legal academics. Based on a nationally representative survey of 3766 academic lawyers conducted in May–June 2022, we test how demographic, professional, and regional factors influence support for conservative policies. We uncover significant differences across age cohorts and professions: older lawyers, graduates of departmental law schools, and those with law enforcement backgrounds are more supportive of conservative measures, while younger scholars, those involved in international academia, and residents of major cities tend to hold more liberal views. In line with popular opinion, support for “gay propaganda” legislation is uniformly high among legal scholars. In contrast, scholars are critical of state surveillance and compulsory religious education. These findings supplement recent critiques of Karpik and Halliday's “legal complex” theory by demonstrating not only that lawyers may hold diverse and conflicting political values, but also that this variation is systematically associated with different forms of professional socialization, institutional location, and transnational academic engagement. The article thus shows how distinct segments of the legal profession become embedded in broader social and political networks that shape their orientations toward liberal and illiberal legal change. The article also contributes to the broader discussion on the role of legal elites in authoritarian settings by demonstrating that they do not form a united liberal front yet nor are they fully aligned with the conservative state agenda.
