- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Annual Review of Law and Social Science
- Early Publication
Annual Review of Law and Social Science - Early Publication
Reviews in Advance appear online ahead of the full published volume. View expected publication dates for upcoming volumes.
-
-
The Politics of Expertise in Genomics Policy and Law
First published online: 15 May 2024More LessGenomics and biotechnology have generated controversy for decades, about the moral limits of tinkering with and commodifying life, the boundary between nature and technology, the respectful treatment of research participants, and the proper evaluation of emerging technologies. Socio-legal and science and technology studies scholars have demonstrated how the resolution of these questions has serious implications for both science and the law, including the appropriate conduct and direction of scientific research and the construction of legal categories and rights. This article demonstrates that these conflicts also have profound impacts on the politics of science and technology, and particularly approaches to relevant knowledge and expertise. Humanities, social scientific, legal, and lay knowledge asserted themselves through the establishment of human genetics research and battles over the ownership of biological materials and data. However, US political culture—which favors technical and market knowledge—constrained their authority. Cross-national comparison highlights this finding, as other jurisdictions have been more inclusive in their approaches to science and technology governance.
-
-
-
Debt on the Ground: The Scholarly Discourse of Bankruptcy and Financial Precarity
First published online: 09 May 2024More LessA rich literature uses law and social science methods to better understand household financial distress and overindebtedness both inside and outside of bankruptcy. This scholarship contributes to several ongoing scholarly conversations, such as those on income and wealth disparities across race and class, how people live in circumstances of financial precarity, why people turn to the legal system to solve their problems, and how to improve access to justice so people can get the help they need. We first review the current literature about who files bankruptcy, the contributors to people's need to file bankruptcy, what happens to them in bankruptcy court, and what happens after their bankruptcy cases conclude. We then outline a research agenda of low-hanging fruit that will contribute to broader sociological and sociolegal research agendas, including economic mobility, aging, gender studies, health studies, family studies, social psychology, and policy work.
-
-
-
International Law, Security, and Sanctions: A Decolonial Perspective on the Transnational Legal Order of Sanctions
Grégoire Mallard, and Jin SunFirst published online: 29 April 2024More LessThis article reviews recent literature on sanctions from international law, political science, sociology, anthropology, and history. It shows how the literature during the comprehensive sanctions decade (the 1990s), with a largely critical view on sanctions in the age of globalization, was co-opted by the targetization of sanctions in the sanctions miniaturization decade (the 2000s). It then reviews the sanctions literature in sociology and anthropology during the sanctions enforcement decade (the 2010s), addressing the transnational characteristics of sanctions, their infrastructural materiality in the digital economy, and the deputization of private actors to police their implementation. Last, the article reviews the literature in colonial governmentality to encourage sanctions specialists to take a longer-term view of transnational orders of sanctions. This section ends with a call to decolonize sanctions research—or rather, to question the colonial origins of sanctions as an instrument of world making so that a properly decolonial perspective on sanctions can be elaborated.
-
-
-
The Psychology of Guilty Plea Decisions
First published online: 19 April 2024More LessIn many jurisdictions, most convictions result from guilty pleas. This reality means that most convictions in these jurisdictions are reached not as the result of the decision-making of judges or juries but as the result of the decision-making of prosecutors (who often have discretion to offer incentives that can encourage defendants to plead guilty) and defendants (who must decide whether to plead guilty). These decisions can be psychologically complex and driven by a range of tactical and normative considerations. This article provides an overview of what we know about how prosecutors and defendants make decisions relating to guilty pleas, examines how modern psychological theory can help us understand these decisions better, and discusses directions for future research in this area. This future research will be important in more effectively evaluating the extent to which convictions obtained via guilty plea are consistent with normative legal goals.
-