The Law of Politics
The Law of Politics

Author: Graeme Orr

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9781862878037

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This book is the first dedicated monograph on the law on democratic politics in Australia. It synthesises the law on elections, with a central focus on political parties, parliamentary elections and referenda at Federal and State levels.It unearths the rules that apply to elections and referenda, campaigning and political broadcasting, and political parties and money. It explains them in their political context and, while it draws on some local government case law, its focus is parliamentary politics. The longest chapter of the book is devoted to the role of courts in overseeing elections, particularly the jurisdiction of petitioning or challenging election outcomes.Orr uses all five sources of electoral law, its development, expression and interpretation, in Australia: constitutions; courts and tribunals; legislation; parliamentary committees; and electoral commissions. He documents the extraordinary detail of the legislation (there has to be a pencil in each electoral booth!) and the array of obscure cases the law has given rise to. Supported under a grant from The Law Foundation of South Australia.

Law and Politics
Law and Politics

Author: Keith E. Whittington

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780415680356

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A new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Political Science, this is a four-volume collection of cutting-edge and canonical research on law and politics.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics
The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics

Author: Keith E. Whittington

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-06-10

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 0191615064

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The study of law and politics is one of the foundation stones of the discipline of political science, and it has been one of the most productive areas of cross-fertilization between the various subfields of political science and between political science and other cognate disciplines. This Handbook provides a comprehensive survey of the field of law and politics in all its diversity, ranging from such traditional subjects as theories of jurisprudence, constitutionalism, judicial politics and law-and-society to such re-emerging subjects as comparative judicial politics, international law, and democratization. The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics gathers together leading scholars in the field to assess key literatures shaping the discipline today and to help set the direction of research in the decade ahead.

Distorting the Law
Distorting the Law

Author: William Haltom

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-11-15

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0226314693

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In recent years, stories of reckless lawyers and greedy citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign. Scholars have argued for years that this common view of the depraved ruin of our civil legal system is a myth, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Michael McCann here persuasively show how popularized distorted understandings of tort litigation (or tort tales) have been perpetuated by the mass media and reform proponents. Distorting the Law lays bare how media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits and sympathetically portrayed corporate interests, supporting big business and reinforcing negative stereotypes of law practices. Based on extensive interviews, nearly two decades of newspaper coverage, and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Law offers a compelling analysis of the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in this process.

Laws of Politics
Laws of Politics

Author: Alfred G. Cuzán

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-08-23

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1000423549

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Drawing on classic and contemporary scholarship and empirical analysis of elections and public expenditures in 80 countries, the author argues for the existence of primary and secondary laws of politics. Starting with how basic elements of politics—leadership, organization, ideology, resources, and force—coalesce in the formation of states, he proceeds to examine the operations of those laws in democracies and dictatorships. Primary laws constrain the support that incumbents draw from the electorate, limiting their time in office. They operate unimpeded in democracies. Secondary laws describe the general tendency of the state to expand vis-à-vis economy and society. They exert their greatest force in one-party states imbued with a totalitarian ideology. The author establishes the primary laws in a rigorous analysis of 1,100 parliamentary and presidential elections in 80 countries, plus another 1,000 U.S. gubernatorial elections. Evidence for the secondary laws is drawn from public expenditure data series, with findings presented in easily grasped tables and graphs. Having established these laws quantitatively, the author uses Cuba as a case study, adding qualitative analysis and a practical application to propose a constitutional framework for a future Cuban democracy. Written in an engaging, jargon-free style, this enlightening book will be of great interest to students and scholars in political science, especially those specializing in comparative politics, as well as opinion leaders and engaged citizens.

The Bible in American Law and Politics
The Bible in American Law and Politics

Author: John R. Vile

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-09-19

Total Pages: 679

ISBN-13: 1538141671

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While scholars increasingly recognize the importance of religion throughout American history, The Bible in American Law and Politics is the first reference book to focus on the key role that the Bible has played in American public life. In considering revolting from Great Britain, Americans contemplated whether this was consistent with scripture. Americans subsequently sought to apply Biblical passages to such issues as slavery, women’s rights, national alcoholic prohibition, issues of war and peace, and the like. American presidents continue to take their oath on the Bible. Some of America’s greatest speeches, for example, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech, have been grounded on Biblical texts or analogies. Today, Americans continue to cite the Bible for positions as diverse as LGBTQ rights, abortion, immigration, welfare, health care, and other contemporary issues. By providing essays on key speeches, books, documents, legal decisions, and other writings throughout American history that have sought to buttress arguments through citations to Scriptures or to Biblical figures, John Vile provides an indispensable guide for scholars and students in religion, American history, law, and political science to understand how Americans throughout its history have interpreted and applied the Bible to legal and political issues.

Law, Politics, and Perception
Law, Politics, and Perception

Author: Eileen Braman

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2009-10-29

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0813928370

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Are judges' decisions more likely to be based on personal inclinations or legal authority? The answer, Eileen Braman argues, is both. Law, Politics, and Perception brings cognitive psychology to bear on the question of the relative importance of norms of legal reasoning versus decision markers' policy preferences in legal decision-making. While Braman acknowledges that decision makers' attitudes—or, more precisely, their preference for policy outcomes—can play a significant role in judicial decisions, she also believes that decision-makers' belief that they must abide by accepted rules of legal analysis significantly limits the role of preferences in their judgements. To reconcile these competing factors, Braman posits that judges engage in "motivated reasoning," a biased process in which decision-makers are unconsciously predisposed to find legal authority that is consistent with their own preferences more convincing than those that go against them. But Braman also provides evidence that the scope of motivated reasoning is limited. Objective case facts and accepted norms of legal reasoning can often inhibit decision makers' ability to reach conclusions consistent with their preferences.

Courts, Law, and Politics in Comparative Perspective
Courts, Law, and Politics in Comparative Perspective

Author: Herbert Jacob

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780300063790

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This comprehensive book compares the intersection of political forces and legal practices in five industrial nations--the United States, England, France, Germany, and Japan. The authors, eminent political scientists and legal scholars, investigate how constitutional courts function in each country, how the adjudication of criminal justice and the processing of civil disputes connect legal systems to politics, and how both ordinary citizens and large corporations use the courts. For each of the five countries, the authors discuss the structure of courts and access to them, the manner in which politics and law are differentiated or amalgamated, whether judicial posts are political prizes or bureaucratic positions, the ways in which courts are perceived as legitimate forms for addressing political conflicts, the degree of legal consciousness among citizens, the kinds of work lawyers do, and the manner in which law and courts are used as social control mechanisms. The authors find that although the extent to which courts participate in policymaking varies dramatically from country to country, judicial responsiveness to perceived public problems is not a uniquely American phenomenon.

Politics International Law
Politics International Law

Author: Nicole Scicluna

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-02

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0198791208

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The Politics of International Law offers an introduction to the role of law in contemporary international affairs. Through a case study-driven analysis of topics such as human rights, the use of force, international environmental law, international trade law, international criminal justice and the right to self-determination, the book explains the interaction between law and politics in the world today, demonstrating that one cannot be understood withoutthe other.The book is divided into two parts. Part I introduces contemporary international law with a focus on constitutive legal principles such as sovereignty, territorial integrity and the legal equality of states. Through these introductory chapters, students are encouraged to take a holistic view of the processes and actors that drive international affairs, and explore the fascinating paradox that while international law is largely created through political processes, it also constitutes theenvironment in which international politics is practiced.Part II builds on the foundations laid in Part I to analyze contemporary controversies in international law and politics. Chapters focus on a number of substantive issue areas, including international environmental law, international economic law, human rights law, self-determination and secession, the law governing the use of force, and international criminal justice.This book is written to impart on readers a deepened understanding of both the possibilities and limits of international law as a tool for structuring relations in the world.Digital Formats and ResourcesAlso available as an e-book with functionality, navigation features, and links that offer extra learning support

The Dred Scott Case
The Dred Scott Case

Author: Don Edward Fehrenbacher

Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 802

ISBN-13:

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979, The Dred Scott Case is a masterful examination of the most famous example of judicial failure--the case referred to as "the most frequently overturned decision in history."On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott, a slave who maintained he had been emancipated as a result of having lived with his master in the free state of Illinois and in federal territory where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. The decision did much more than resolve the fate of an elderly black man and his family: Dred Scott v. Sanford was the first instance in which the Supreme Court invalidated a major piece of federal legislation. The decision declared that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the federal territories, thereby striking a severe blow at the the legitimacy of the emerging Republican party and intensifying the sectional conflict over slavery.This book represents a skillful review of the issues before America on the eve of the Civil War. The first third of the book deals directly with the with the case itself and the Court's decision, while the remainder puts the legal and judicial question of slavery into the broadest possible American context. Fehrenbacher discusses the legal bases of slavery, the debate over the Constitution, and the dispute over slavery and continental expansion. He also considers the immediate and long-range consequences of the decision.