Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Over the last decade, legislation that seeks to reform the civil justice system has been introduced in every state legislature. Much of the ensuing debate centered around the trading of anecdotes about a court system gone awry. In certain cases, however, social science research findings were introduced by legislators. This research was used to justify the need for the proposed reforms and was cited approvingly by legislative supporters. Further, this research made its way into the legislative findings, which are often necessary to establish the constitutional legitimacy of the reforms.
Unfortunately, some of this research was shoddily conducted and met no accepted standard for legitimate social science research. The research never appeared in law reviews or peer-reviewed journals, was often conducted by hired consultants or private think tanks, used questionable methodologies, ignored relevant academic research, misrepresented its findings, or drew unfounded conclusions from its data.
The proposed working paper critically examines some of this questionable research, looking at the quality of the research– that is, how well it meets accepted standards of social science research–as well as how it was used in the legislative debate. It briefly discusses the state legislative battles over tort reform, examines some of the research used in the Ohio and Florida and other state legislatures during passage of tort reform, and discusses the implications of the use of such research in reforming the legal system as well as broader implications for policy development. Finally, it raises the question as to why, with the prevalence of solid academic socio-legal research on the civil justice system–research that could be used for or against tort reform–flawed research would play such an important role in the legislative debate over tort reform.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper analyzes newspaper coverage of immigration reform in mainstream English-language newspapers prior to, and following passage of immigration reform legislation by the US House of Representatives in December, 2005. The purpose of this project is twofold: 1) To illuminate the media’s participation in the social construction of the policy “problem” and acceptable “solutions” to it; 2) To illuminate how the social construction of the policy problem and solution contributes to the social construction of a particular group of people in America, namely Latino immigrants. The analysis presented here is based upon a qualitative analysis of a large random sample of newspaper articles published in the northeast and southwest United States during August 2005, April 2006, and October 2006. The analysis reveals both consistency and significant changes in the news coverage of immigration reform between April 2005 and October 2006. I discuss two key findings at length. First, changes in coverage between August 2005 and October 2006 portray an expansion in the terms of the debate about immigration reform that has proven significant in the course of the policy’s development. Second, while many articles fail to explain the need for immigration reform, the coverage generally portrays the problem as “illegal immigrants” from south of the US-Mexican border. This portrayal contributes to the social construction of Latinos as the Other. This project therefore enhances our understanding of the social construction of immigration policy and its subjects, and the print media’s contribution to this process.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Restoration Act, also called the Welfare Reform Act, marked the end of a long process to change redistribution and social policy in the United States. In addition to placing more limits on who could receive welfare and for how long, the legislation gave more autonomy to the states in designing welfare policy. However, state-level estimates of support for welfare reform during this time period do not exist. I estimate state-level support for limiting the duration of welfare participation, a key component of welfare reform, using multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) on 4 national polls. I overcome the small sample problem of simply disaggregating survey responses by state and generate plausible measures of state support for welfare reform. As an applied use of these estimates, I analyze Senate voting behavior on the Welfare Reform Act and find little evidence in favor of responsiveness, despite the added precision of the new opinion estimates.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the post-TRIPS era, there has been increasing interest in regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements as tools used to increased international IP protection. Scholars of international relations have, however, devoted far less attention to the reinvigoration of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)--the pre-TRIPS guardian of international IP norm-setting--as an active participant in the push to generate higher international IP norms and increase international IP protection beyond that required by TRIPS. In September 2004, amidst concerns that WIPO has been 'captured' by a narrow group of industry interests and industrialised countries, a group of developing countries launched a proposal for a WIPO 'Development Agenda' that would reform WIPO's mandate, perspective, norm-setting functions and programmatic activities. This paper evaluates the prospects for the institutional reform proposals embodied in the 'Development Agenda'. It begins by introducing the main contours of contemporary debates in WIPO, the key actors, and the core elements of the Development Agenda. To understand the prospects for reform at WIPO, I argue that it is vital to reflect on both the history of the organisation and its core organisational features. Using a historical institutionalist framework, I review the evolution of ideas within WIPO regarding the purpose of the organisation and perspectives on intellectual property and the historical antecedents to the contemporary Development Agenda debate. In addition, I explore the unique institutional features, incentives and deficiencies that emerge from WIPO's unique governance and funding structures. I link this analysis to the lessons derived from the IR literature on the reform of international organisations to offer an evaluation of the prospects of the Development Agenda itself. Finally, I reflect on the implications that the insights from this analysis have for the political strategies of those working to promote a more accountable, transparent and development-oriented WIPO.