Rights in American society present a paradox—critics increasingly assert that proliferation of rights is undermining Americans' sense of community, yet scholars continue to document Americans' reluctance to assert formal legal rights. We explore the meaning of rights in American society by describing the intersection between the evolving civil rights of a previously excluded minority, culminating in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the personal histories of two individuals who might potentially invoke or benefit from such rights. Tracing the life stories of “Sara Lane” and “Jill Golding” from childhood through adolescence to adulthood and employment, we relate the everyday relevance or irrelevance of law to important elements of the reconstructed past—the development of self-concept and of one's place in relation to the social mainstream. The article, which is part of a larger project involving a more broadly based interview sample of adults with disabilities, analyzes life stories to critique familiar assumptions about the perceived conflict between rights and social relationships and about the mobilization of law. It also offers an innovative approach to the study of law and legal consciousness by involving Sara Lane and Jill Golding in the analysis of successive drafts and by including their reactions to what the authors have written.

Sociolegal scholars have become increasingly interested in comparative legal cultures, largely under the hypotheses that what people think about the law and the values embedded therein has something to do with how they behave and, ultimately, some consequences for the larger political and legal systems. For instance, attitudes toward the rule of law no doubt influence (though they do not determine) people's willingness to comply with laws. Most agree that one cannot understand the role of law in society without understanding something of legal cultures. We present an investigation into the legal cultures of the countries of the European Union. Drawing on mass surveys conducted within each of the countries (including a separate sample in East Germany), we explore popular attitudes toward various dimensions of law: support for the rule of law; perceptions that law is a nonneutral, repressive force; and support for individual liberty. Although our analysis focuses on national differences, we also explore within-system variation (e.g., across various socioeconomic strata). Ultimately, our purpose is to document cross-national differences in legal cultures and to take some tentative steps toward explaining the origins of these differences.

Given that democratization is an ongoing, dynamic process, what explains the emergence and maintenance of some types of political institutions and the decline of others? The answer, we argue, lies not in the intentional design of long-run constitutional principles but rather in the short-run strategic choices of political actors. While many would agree with this vision as applied to legislative or executive institutions, we claim that it is equally applicable to courts. After laying out our argument—a theory of institutional emergence and maintenance—in some detail, we test it by applying game theory to a critical moment in American history: the defining sequence of events for American presidential-court relations that played out between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall in the early 1800s. Our analysis allows us to assess factors fundamental to most explanations of the Jefferson-Marshall conflict: the political and institutional preferences of the actors (especially Jefferson's preferences over judicial review) and the larger political environment in which the conflict took place. It also provides important insights into how we might study other interinstitutional interactions, be they of historical moment or of future concern.

Evidence that juries treat corporate defendants less favorably than individual defendants is often cited in support of the widely held view that juries are biased against wealthy “deep-pocket” defendants. Such evidence confounds defendant wealth and defendant identity. In two juror simulation experiments involving citizens on jury duty, these factors were separated by manipulating whether the defendant was described as a poor individual, a wealthy individual, or a corporation; the defendant's assets were described identically in the latter two conditions. In Experiment 1, liability was significantly more likely, and awards were significantly greater, for corporate defendants than for wealthy individual defendants, but verdicts against poor versus wealthy individuals did not differ. In Experiment 2, awards were larger against wealthy individuals who engaged in commercial rather than personal activities, and awards in the personal activity condition were larger against corporations than wealthy individuals. There was little evidence for a defendant wealth effect on juror judgments. While juries do appear to treat corporations differently, the explanation may have more to do with citizens' views about the special risks and responsibilities of commercial activity.

This article analyzes the growing trend in legal and sociolegal theory to place a pivotal emphasis on the internal/external distinction. To provide a better understanding for the application of this distinction, the author elaborates on its origins in the philosophy of social sciences. Using detailed legal examples, he then develops a theory of a practice to help serve as an organizing concept for many applications of the distinction. Finally, applying this background and the notion of a practice, the author analyzes the different uses of the distinction in legal and sociolegal theory.