Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T23:47:04.294Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Institutional and Political Sources of Legislative Change: Explaining How Private Organizations Influence the Form and Content of Consumer Protection Legislation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Shauhin A. Talesh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores how private organizations influence the content and meaning of consumer protection legislation. I examine why California forced consumers to use a private dispute resolution system that affords consumers fewer rights, while Vermont adopted a state‐run disputing structure that affords consumers greater rights. Drawing from historical and new institutional theories, I analyze twenty‐five years of legislative history, as well as interviews with drafters of the California and Vermont laws, to show how automobile manufacturers weakened the impact of a powerful California consumer warranty law by creating dispute resolution venues. As these structures became institutionalized in the lemon law field, manufacturers reshaped the meaning of legislation. Unlike California, the political alliances in Vermont and a different developmental path led to a state‐run dispute resolution structure. I conclude that how social reform laws are designed and how businesses influence social reform legislation can increase or decrease the achievement of a statute's social reform goals.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , Fall 2014 , pp. 973 - 1005
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Albiston, Catherine 1999. The Rule of Law and the Litigation Process: The Paradox of Losing by Winning. Law & Society Review 33:869–910.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jeb 2007. Rethinking the Landscape of Tort Reform: Legislative Inertia and Court‐Based Tort Reform in the Case of Asbestos. Justice Systems Journal 28:157–181.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jeb 2008. Courts and the Puzzle of Institutional Stability and Change—Administrative Drift and Judicial Innovation in the Case of Asbestos. Political Research Quarterly 61:636–648.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jeb 2011. Dust‐Up: Asbestos Litigation and the Failure of Commonsense Reform. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jeb, and Burke, Thomas 2006. The Diffusion of Rights. Law & Society Review 40:493–523.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jeb, and Burke, Thomas 2012. Making Way: Legal Mobilization, Organizational Response, and Wheelchair Access. Law & Society Review 46:167–198.Google Scholar
Baron, James N., Dobbin, Frank R., and Jennings, P. Deveraux 1986. War and Peace: The Evolution of Modern Personnel Administration in US Industry. American Journal of Sociology 92:350–383.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Elman, Colin 2006. Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods. Annual Review of Political Science 9:455–476.Google Scholar
Bumiller, Kristin 1987. Victims in the Shadow of the Law: A Critique of the Model of Legal Protection. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12:421–439.Google Scholar
Burger, Warren 1982. The State of the Judiciary. ABA Journal 68:274–277.Google Scholar
Burke, Thomas, and Barnes, Jeb 2009. Is There an Empirical Literature on Rights? Studies in Law, Politics and Society 48:69–91.Google Scholar
Bush, Robert A. Baruch 1989. Mediation and Adjudication, Dispute Resolution and Ideology: An Imaginary Conversation. Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 3:1–36.Google Scholar
Bush, Robert A. Baruch, and Folger, Joseph P. 1994. The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. 1962. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. 1977. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven E., Heritage, John, Elliot, Marc N., and McDonald, Laurie L. 2007. When Does the Watchdog Bark?: Conditions of Aggressive Questioning in Presidential News Conferences. American Sociological Review 72:23–41.Google Scholar
Clemens, Elisabeth S., and Cook, James M. 1999. Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change. Annual Review of Sociology 25:441–466.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Powell, Walter W. 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48:147–160.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, and Sutton, John 1998. The Strength of a Weak State: The Employment Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions. American Journal of Sociology 104:441–476.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1990. Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace. American Journal of Sociology 95:1401–1440.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1992. Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law. American Journal of Sociology 97:1531–1576.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 2007. Overlapping Fields and Constructed Legalities: The Endogeneity of Law. In Private Equity, Corporate Governance and the Dynamics of Capital Market Regulation, ed. O'Brien, Justin, 55–90. London: Imperial College Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Abraham, Steven E., and Erlanger, Howard S. 1992. Professional Construction of the Legal Environment: The Inflated Threat of Wrongful Discharge Doctrine. Law & Society Review 26:47–83.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Erlanger, Howard S., and Lande, John 1993. Employers' Handling of Discrimination Complaints: The Transformation of Rights in the Workplace. Law & Society Review 27:497–534.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Krieger, Linda, Eliason, Scott, Albiston, Catherine, and Mellema, Virginia 2011. When Organizations Rule: Judicial Deference to Institutionalized Employment Structures. American Journal of Sociology 117:888–954.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., and Stryker, Robin 2005. A Sociological Approach to Law and the Economy. In The Handbook of Economic Sociology, ed. Smelser, Neil and Swedberg, Richard, 527–551. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Uggen, Christoper, and Erlanger, Howard S. 1999. The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation: Grievance Procedures as Rational Myth. American J. of Sociology 105:406–454.Google Scholar
Engel, David, and Munger, Frank 1996. Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference. Law & Society Review 30:7–53.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles 2009. Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Alan 1990. Antidiscrimination Law: A Critical Review. In The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, ed. Kairys, David, 96–116. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Fisher, Roger, and Ury, William 1981. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Fligstein, Neil 1990. The Transformation of Corporate Control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Friedland, Roger, and Alford, Robert R. 1991. Bringing Society Back in: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions. In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, ed. Powell, Walter and DiMaggio, Paul, 232–263. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, and Lande, John 1992. Private Courts and Public Authority. Studies in Law, Politics, & Society 12:393–415.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, and Lande, John 2002. The Turn Against Law: The Recoil Against Expanding Accountability. Texas Law Review 81:285–304.Google Scholar
George, Alexander, and Bennett, Andrew 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gerring, John 2010. Causal Mechanisms: Yes, But … Comparative Political Studies 43:1499–1526.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob 2002. The Divided Welfare State: The Battle of Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob 2004. Privatizing Risk Without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Retrenchment in the United States. American Political Science Review 98:243–260.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob 2006. The Great Risk Shift. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, and Pierson, Paul 2010. Winner‐Take‐All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A., and Taylor, Rosemary C. R. 1996. Political Science and the Three Institutionalisms. Political Studies 44:936–957.Google Scholar
Heimer, Carol 1999. Competing Institutions: Law, Medicine, and Family in Neonatal Intensive Care. Law & Society Review 33:17–66.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sanford 1985. Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry 1900–1945. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. 1996. Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security. In The Culture of National Security, ed. Katzenstein, Peter J. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan 1980. Toward an Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness: The Case of the Classical Legal Thought in America, 1850–1940. Research in Law and Sociology 3:3–24.Google Scholar
Krawiec, Kimberly 2003. Cosmetic Compliance and the Failure of Negotiated Governance. Washington University Law Review 81:487–544.Google Scholar
Krawiec, Kimberly 2005. Organizational Misconduct: Beyond the Principal‐Agent Model. Florida State University Law Review 32:571–616.Google Scholar
Krippendorff, Klaus 1980. Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Lande, John 1998. Failing Faith in Litigation? A Survey of Business Lawyers' and Executives' Opinions. Harvard Negotiation Law Review 3:1–70.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Jethro K. 1983. The Litigious Society. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, Mark, Ventresca, Marc, and Hirsch, Paul 2003. Social Movements, Field Frames, and Industry Emergence: A Cultural‐Political Perspective on US Recycling (2003). Socio‐Economic Review 1:71–104.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael 1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilizations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Menkel‐Meadow, Carrie 1984. Toward Another View of Legal Negotiation: The Structure of Problem‐Solving. UCLA Law Review 31:754–842.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., and Rowan, Brian 1977. Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83:340–363.Google Scholar
Minow, Martha 1987. Interpreting Rights: An Essay for Robert Cover. Yale Law Journal 96:1860–1915.Google Scholar
Moore, Christopher 1986. The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Justin 2007. The Dynamics of Capital Markets Governance. In Private Equity, Corporate Governance & the Dynamics of Capital Market Regulation, ed. O'Brien, Justin, 1–29. London: Imperial College Press.Google Scholar
Orloff, Ann Shola, and Skocpol, Theda 1984. Why Not Equal Protection? Explaining the Politics of Public Spending in Britain, 1900–1911, and the United States, 1880s–1920. American Sociological Review 49:726–750.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul 2000a. The Limits of Design: Explaining Institutional Origins and Change. Governance 13:475–499.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul 2000b. Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics. American Political Science Review 94:251–267.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul 2004. Politics in time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald 1991. The Hollow Hope. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schickler, Eric 2001. Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the United States Congress. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schneiberg, Marc 1999. Political and Institutional Conditions for Governance by Association; Private Order and Price Controls in American Fire Insurance. Politics & Society 27:67–103.Google Scholar
Schneiberg, Marc 2002. Organizational Heterogeneity and the Production of New Forms: Politics, Social Movements and Mutual Companies in American Fire Insurance, 1900–1930. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 19:39–89.Google Scholar
Schneiberg, Marc 2005. Combining New Institutionalisms: Explaining Institutional Change in American Property Insurance. Sociological Forum 20:93–137.Google Scholar
Schneiberg, Marc, and Bartley, Tim 2001. Regulating American Industries: Markets, Politics and the Institutional Determinants of Fire Insurance Regulation. American Journal of Sociology 107:101–146.Google Scholar
Schneiberg, Marc, and Soule, Sarah 2004. Institutionalization as a Contested, Multi‐Level Process: The Case of Rate Regulation in American Fire Insurance. In Social Movements and Organization Theory: Building Bridges, ed. Davis, Gerald, McAdam, Doug, Richard, William, Mayer, Scott, and Zald, Nathan, 122–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schultz, Vicki 1990. Telling Stories About Women and Work: Judicial Interpretations of Sex Segregation in the Workplace in Title VII Cases Raising the Lack of Interest Argument. Harvard Law Review 103:1749–1843.Google Scholar
Scott, Richard W. 1992. The Organization of Environments: Networks, Cultural & Historical Elements. In Organizational Environment: Ritual & Rationality, ed. Meyer, John and Scott, Richard, 155–175. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Scott, Richard W. 2002. Institutions & Organizations, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Scott, Richard W., and Davis, Gerald F. 2007. Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems Perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Selznick, Philip 1969. Law, Society, & Industrial Justice. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Gordon 2009. Law Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, Arthur 1997. Tilly on the Past as a Sequence of Futures. In Roads from Past to Future, ed. Tilly, Charles, 387–421. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, and Thelen, Kathleen 2004. Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. In Beyond Continuity, ed. Streeck, Wolfgang and Thelen, Kathleen, 1–39. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stryker, Robin 1994. Rules, Resources, and Legitimacy Processes: Some Implications for Social Conflict, Order, and Change. American Journal of Sociology 99:847–910.Google Scholar
Stryker, Robin 2000. Legitimacy Processes as Institutional Politics: Implications for Theory and Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 17:179–223.Google Scholar
Stryker, Robin 2002. A Political Approach to Organizations and Institutions. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 19:169–193.Google Scholar
Talesh, Shauhin 2009. The Privatization of Public Legal Rights: How Manufacturers Construct the Meaning of Consumer Law. Law & Society Review 43:527–562.Google Scholar
Talesh, Shauhin 2012. How Dispute Resolution System Design Matters: An Organizational Analysis of Dispute Resolution Structures and Consumer Lemon Laws. Law & Society Review 46:463–496.Google Scholar
Talesh, Shauhin 2013. How the “Haves” Come Out Ahead in the Twenty‐First Century. DePaul Law Review 62:519–554.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen 1999. Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 2:369–404.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen 2004. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tolbert, Pamela S., and Zucker, Lynne G. 1983. Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880–1935. Administrative Science Quarterly 28:22–39.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark V. 1984. An Essay on Rights. Texas Law Review 62:1363–1404.Google Scholar
Weir, Margaret 1992. Ideas and the Politics of Bounded Innovation. In Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, ed. Steinmo, Sven, Thelen, Kathleen, and Longstreth, Frank, 188–216. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Westin, Alan F., and Feliu, Alfred G. 1988. Resolving Employment Disputes Without Litigation. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs.Google Scholar
Williams, Patricia J. 1991. The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

California Song‐Beverly Consumer Warranty Act §§ 1790 et seq. (1970).Google Scholar
California Song‐Beverly Consumer Warranty Act § 1793.22 (1982).Google Scholar
Federal Magnuson Moss Federal Trade Commission Act 15 U.S.C. 2301 et seq. Pub L. No. 93‐637 (1975).Google Scholar
Vermont Statute Code Annotated §§ 4170–4181 (1984).Google Scholar