For the past two decades, land in Yajouz has been the locus of fierce contestation between the government of Jordan, the Bani Hasan tribe, and new settlers. Today, Yajouz is a peripheral urban settlement deemed illegal by the government. Three main factors have contributed to the making of Yajouz in its present form: (1) the contested nature of claims to land; (2) the plurality of control mechanisms and ordering of the social and the geographical space, allowing the land market to develop as a semi-autonomous social field; (3) the process of mutual adjustment between state organs and the Yajouz social field, defining the security of tenure among settlers and the social functioning of law. I argue that the Yajouz market does not manifest a traditional phenomenon giving way to modernity; it is rather a modern phenomenon itself shaping and being shaped by the daily functioning of law. In this case, conflicting claims to resources have been catalysts for the development of a semi-autonomous social field, which in turn has engaged state organs in a process of mutual adjustment.

The movement for removal of criminal penalties for possession of marihuana in the United States provides an important case study of the causes and process of decriminalization. Between 1973 and 1978, 11 states reduced criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the drug, but the reform movement was fragile, brief, and limited to a few states. This case study suggests that reform was driven in part by “moral dissonance” resulting from the arrest of high-status offenders. Although public opinion has always been deeply divided on decriminalization of marihuana possession, a narrow “policy window” was created in the 1970s by the expressed concern of political leaders about the effect of arrest on high-status youths and the support of law enforcement agencies interested in efficient use of limited resources. Even after the window for reform closed at the end of the 1970s with a shift in national leadership, deep moral ambivalence renders criminalization symbolic and police place a low priority on marihuana arrests.

What is the relationship between employment discrimination litigation and the relative earnings of blacks and whites in the United States? Do victories in court affect blacks' relative earnings? Are gains in earnings associated with legal victories enduring or temporary? Can litigation be an effective tactic in efforts at social reform? Data on plaintiff victories in employment discrimination cases decided by U.S. appellate courts from 1965 through 1985 show that victories are associated with significant and enduring increases in blacks' relative earnings. One implication is that at least in this area, the courts may bring about social reform.

This article drew on expectancy theory in industrial/organizational psychology to explain arrest productivity for driving under the influence (DUI) in a sample of Pennsylvania police officers. Expectancy theory is a cognitive model of motivation and performance based on workers' perceptions of their situation. Its major elements are estimated in a regression model: the officer's capability and opportunity for DUI enforcement (performance-reward expectancy), the instrumentality of DUI enforcement behavior for the officer, and the reward-cost balance associated with making DUI arrests. These factors account for 26% of the residual variance in the number of DUI arrests made annually once organizational effects have been removed. The relationships revealed are as expectancy theory predicts, except for instrumentality variables, which show a negative relationship to arrest productivity. This is due largely to the orientation of a small number of “rate busters,” whose exceptionally high arrest rate and negative attitudes toward their peers and the department hierarchy make them a distinct group accounting for a disproportionate number of arrests.

Despite a widespread assumption that divorce mediation and divorce lawyers are incompatible, lawyers do play active—if largely unexamined—roles in many mediation programs. This article reports on the work of lawyers in a state with mandatory mediation. We find that lawyers in Maine have generally embraced mediation because it helps them manage problems inherent in divorce practice. Mandated divorce mediation facilitates both settlement negotiation and trial preparation, permits client participation in decisionmaking without requiring lawyers to surrender control, provides a forum for resolving both legal and nonlegal issues, and promotes efficient case management.