Austin Sarat

Bio: Austin Sarat is an academic researcher from Amherst College. The author has contributed to research in topics: Jurisprudence & Comparative law. The author has an hindex of 41, co-authored 205 publications receiving 6599 citations. Previous affiliations of Austin Sarat include University of California, Berkeley & Yale University.

The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming …

Abstract: The sociology of law has been dominated by studies of officials and formal institutions and their work products. Studying the emergence and transformation of disputes means studying a social process as it occurs. It means studying the conditions under which injuries are peceived or go unnoticed and how people respond to the experience of injustice and conflict. This chapter provides a framework within which the emergence and transformation of disputes can be described. It describes the study of transformations with the belief that the antecedents of disputing are as problematic and as interesting as the disputes that may ultimately emerge. The chapter begins by setting the stages in the development of disputes and the activities connecting one stage to the next. Trouble, problems, personal and social dislocation are everyday occurrences. Learning more about the existence, absence, or reversal of these basic transformations increase our understanding of the disputing process and our ability to evaluate dispute processing institutions.

Grievances, Claims, and Disputes: Assessing the Adversary Culture

Abstract: The existence of a dispute has typically been the starting point for inquiries into dispute processing and resolution. This paper explores the origins of disputes in grievances and claims. It reports on a survey of households estimating the rates of grievances, claims, and disputes which could have been processed by a civil court of general jurisdiction. The paper also explores multivariate models of the probabilities that households experience substantial grievances, that claims for redress are made, and that disputes result. The models assess the contributions of household and problem characteristics to these transitions. By treating disputes as problematic outcomes of injurious experiences, the paper contributes to an assessment of the adversariness of American society.

".. The Law Is All Over": Power, Resistance and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor

Abstract: \"For me the law is all over. I am caught, you know; there is always some rule that I'm supposed to follow, some rule I don't even know about that they say. It's just different and you can't really understand.\" These words were spoken by Spencer, a thirty-five-year-old man on public assistance (general relief), whom I first encountered in the waiting room of a legal services office. I introduced myself and told him that I was interested in talking to him about law and finding out why he was using legal services; I asked if he would be willing to talk with me and allow me to be present when he met with his lawyer. While he seemed, at first, both puzzled and amused that I had, as he put it, \"nothing more important to do,\" he agreed to both of my requests. As my research unfolded, what Spencer said in our first conversation, .. the law is all over,\" served as a reference point for understanding the meaning and significance of law in the lives of the welfare poor. His words helped me interpret how people on welfare think about law and use legal ideas as well as how they respond to problems with the welfare bureaucracy. In this paper I present that interpretation and describe what I call the legal consciousness of the welfare poor.' I suggest that the legal

When the state kills : capital punishment and the American condition

Abstract: Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1 Introduction: "If Timothy McVeigh Doesn't Deserve to Die, Who Does?" 3 PART ONE State Killing and the Politic of Vengeance 31 Chapter 2 The Return of Revenge: Hearing the Voice of the Victim in Capital Trials 33 Chapter 3 Killing Me Softly: Capital Punishment and the Technologies for Taking Life 60 PART TWO State Killing in the Legal Proce 85 Chapter 4 Capital Trials and the Ordinary World of State Killing 87 Chapter 5 The Role of the Jury in the Killing State 126 Chapter 6 Narrative Strategy and Death Penalty Advocacy: Attempting to Save the Condemned 158 PART THREE The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment 185 Chapter 7 To See or Not To See: On Televising Executions 187 Chapter 8 State Killing in Popular Culture: Responsibility and Representation in Dead Man Walking, Last Dance, and The Green Mile 209 Chapter 9 Conclusion: Toward New Abolitionism 246 Notes 261 Index 315

Law in Everyday Life

Abstract: "Sarat and Kearns . . . have edited a truly marvelous work on the impact of the law on daily life and vice versa. . . . the essays are all exemplary, thought- provoking works worthy of a long, contemplative read by scholars, lawyers, and judges alike." --"Choice""The subject of law in everyday life is timely in theory and in practice. The essays collected here are stimulating for the very different ways in which they reconfigure the meanings of 'the law' as cultural practice, and 'the everyday' as a cultural domain in which the state expresses a range of interests and engagements. Readers looking for an introduction to this topic will come away from the book with a clear sense of the varied voices and modes of inquiry now involved in sociolegal studies, and what distinguishes them. More experienced readers will appreciate the book's meticulous reconsideration of the instrumentalities, agencies, and constructedness of law." --Carol Greenhouse, Indiana UniversityContributors include David Engel, Hendrik Hartog, Thomas R. Kearns, David Kennedy, Catharine MacKinnon, George Marcus, Austin Sarat, and Patricia Williams.Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, and Chair of the Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, Amherst College. Thomas R. Kearns is William H. Hastie Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, Amherst College.

Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence

Abstract: People who hold strong opinions on complex social issues are likely to examine relevant empirical evidence in a biased manner. They are apt to accept "confirming" evidence at face value while subjecting "discontinuing" evidence to critical evaluation, and as a result to draw undue support for their initial positions from mixed or random empirical findings. Thus, the result of exposing contending factions in a social dispute to an identical body of relevant empirical evidence may be not a narrowing of disagreement but rather an increase in polarization. To test these assumptions and predictions, subjects supporting and opposing capital punishment were exposed to two purported studies, one seemingly confirming and one seemingly disconfirming their existing beliefs about the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty. As predicted, both proponents and opponents of capital punishment rated those results and procedures that confirmed their own beliefs to be the more convincing and probative ones, and they reported corresponding shifts in their beliefs as the various results and procedures were presented. The net effect of such evaluations and opinion shifts was the postulated increase in attitude polarization. The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolate. (Bacon, 1620/1960)

The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Support for Policing

Abstract: This study explores two issues about police legitimacy. The first issue is the relative importance of police legitimacy in shaping public support of the police and policing activities, compared to the importance of instrumental judgments about (1) the risk that people will be caught and sanctioned for wrongdoing, (2) the performance of the police in fighting crime, and/or (3) the fairness of the distribution of police services. Three aspects of public support for the police are examined: public compliance with the law, public cooperation with the police, and public willingness to support policies that empower the police. The second issue is which judgments about police activity determine people’s views about the legitimacy of the police. This study compares the influence of people’s judgments about the procedural justice of the manner in which the police exercise their authority to the influence of three instrumental judgments: risk, performance, and distributive fairness. Findings of two surveys of New Yorkers show that, first, legitimacy has a strong influence on the public’s reactions to the police, and second, the key antecedent of legitimacy is the fairness of the procedures used by the police. This model applies to both white and minority group residents.

Taking Rights Seriously

Abstract: 1.. HARD CASES 5. Legal Rights A. Legislation . . . We might therefore do well to consider how a philosophical judge might develop, in appropriate cases, theories of what legislative purpose and legal principles require. We shall find that he would construct these theories in the same manner as a philosophical referee would construct the character of a game. I have invented, for this purpose, a lawyer of superhuman skill, learning, patience and acumen, whom I shall call Hercules. I suppose that Hercules is a judge in some representative American jurisdiction. I assume that he accepts the main uncontroversial constitutive and regulative rules of the law in his jurisdiction. He accepts, that is, that statutes have the general power to create and extinguish legal rights, and that judges have the general duty to follow earlier decisions of their court or higher courts whose rationale, as l

The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World.

Abstract: basic research and clinical data in an attempt to derive a cohesive model which explains the behavioral effects of the drug. Johnson is an experimental psychologist, and his work underlies many of the chapters which suggest that lithium decreases the behavioral response to novel external stimuli. He then utilizes this foundation to propose a cognitive model for lithium's anti-manic action, its inhibition of violent impulsivity, and its prophylactic effects in recurrent depression. Previous formulations which were clinically based, such as that of Mabel Blake Cohen and her associates, stressed the primacy of depression and noted the \"manic defense\" as an attempt to ward off intolerable depression. In direct contrast, Johnson views mania as the primary disturbance in bipolar disorder. He considers depression in bipolar disease as an over-zealous homeostatic inhibitory responsf to a maniaassociated cognitive overload. Consistent with this, he believes, lit lum exerts its anti-manic effect by decreasing cognitive processing in a manner analogous to his animal studies. Johnson also suggests that lithium exerts its prophylactic effect in recurrent depressions by treating subclinical mania. These concepts are supported by the work of Johnson's associate, Kukopulos, to whom the book is dedicated. The bulk of the research which describes the cognitive disturbance in mania is complex, however, and uncomfortably open to multiple interpretations. Recognized as a preliminary effort, Johnson's formulation may help to guide further research. Although Johnson clearly traces lithium actions through a broad range of subjects, his discussion of the neurophysiological aspects of this drug is notably spotty. In particular, Johnson ignores the work of Svensson, DeMontigny, Aghajanian, and others who suggest that serotonergic systems may play an important role in the antidepressant actions of lithium. As a result, he fails to discuss one of the most important current uses of lithium: as an agent used in conjunction with antidepressant medications to increase treatment response in medication-resistant forms of depression. Lithium augmentation of antidepressant medication also challenges the formulation presented by Johnson. This formulation suggests that lithium should have no therapeutic value in patients, such as those with endogenous depression, who already \"under-process\" cognitive information. The omission of lithium augmentation in depression is clearly unfortunate in this text. Overall, this volume demonstrates the benefits of a single-authored text. It it clearly organized and readable. The bibliography is also broad and useful. In this book, Johnson primarily addresses a research audience, and his model seems designed to stimulate thought rather than to improve clinical technique. In this capacity, his book will be of most interest to behavioral psychologists. Other books, focusing purely on clinical data, may be more useful to clinicians. Nevertheless, the clear organization, the large bibliography, and the thoughtful presentation may make this text a useful addition to a clinical library as well.

Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas

Abstract: There is an old saw in political science that difficult conditions become problems only when people come to see them as amenable to human action. Until then, difficulties remain embedded in the realm of nature, accident, and fate -a realm where there is no choice about what happens to us. The conversion of difficulties into problems is said to be the sine qua non of political rebellion, legal disputes, interest-group mobilization, and of moving policy problems onto the public agenda.' This article is about how situations come to be seen as caused by human actions and amenable to human intervention. Despite the acknowledged importance of this phenomenon as a precursor to political participation and to agenda setting, there is little systematic inquiry about it in the political science literature. For the most part, the question is dealt with under the rubric of agenda setting, even though the transformation of difficulties into problems takes place in something of a black box prior to agenda formation. Three strands of thinking in the agenda literature contribute indirectly to an understanding of this topic. One strand focuses on the identity and characteristics of political actors -leaders, interest groups, professionals, breaucrats. It looks at the actors' attitudes, resources, and opportunities