Human rights upsurge

Contentious coupling and the limitations of solitary confinement reform in Taiwan

Bibliographic Data

ID4085276
AuthorsYen-Tung Lin (0009-0005-2907-8009, University of California), Yao-Kwang Lin (University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume59
Issue3
Pages584-618
Publication date2025-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Society Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/lsr.2025.10043
OpenAlexW4412414043
LanguageEN
References cited97

Research informed by sociological neoinstitutionalism often frames organizational reactions to legal norms as either loose coupling, where formal legal commitments are only weakly aligned with actual practices, or tight coupling, where strong internal or external compliance pressures drive close alignment. This article introduces a third pattern - contentious coupling - where some organizational members attempt to realign practices with legal commitments, but these very efforts provoke pushback from others, resulting in substantive yet constrained success. This paradox is key to understanding the widespread yet limited effects of legal rights. I illustrate contentious coupling by examining how international human rights law has shaped solitary confinement reform in Taiwan. While hierarchical enforcement led by rights advocates and policymakers has successfully reduced prolonged solitary confinement, it has also alienated frontline correctional officers by triggering a sense of relative deprivation and perception of hypocrisy, encapsulated in their complaints of a "human rights upsurge." In response, these officers engage in two forms of passive resistance - formalistic care and resistance spillover - both of which undermine the authority of human rights and hinder their capacity to transform correctional culture

Coupling (piping · Human rights · Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Law · Materials Science · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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