Taking the Law to Court

Citizen Suits and the Legislative Process

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6230001
AutoresMarion Dumas (0000-0001-7847-479X, Santa Fe Institute, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen61
Número4
Páginas944-957
Fecha de publicación2017-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ajps.12302
OpenAlexW2607496602
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas28

The institution of citizen suits is a decentralized form of public participation that allows citizens to influence the implementation of public laws in courts. How does this institution influence policymaking? This article proposes a model of citizen suits. It then analyzes how this institution influences legislative decisions. The legislature bargains to choose the budget, distributive spending, and spending on an ideologically contested public good (e.g., health care or environmental protection). I find that citizen suits enable courts to forge a compromise between opponents and proponents of the public good by responding to the diverse claims of citizens. Anticipating the mobilization of citizens in courts, legislators in turn craft more socially efficient bills, with less distributive spending, which better represent the distribution of preferences for the public good compared to when citizens have no role in the implementation of legislation

Business · Compromise · Craft · Distributive property · Economics · Ideology · Institution · Law and economics · Legislation · Legislative process · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Public Administration