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Unjust laws and illegal norms

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  • Carbonara, Emanuela
  • Parisi, Francesco
  • von Wangenheim, Georg

Abstract

Due to a variety of circumstances, lawmakers occasionally create laws whose aims are perceived as outright unjust by the majority of the people. In other situations, the law may utilize improper means for the pursuit of a just goal. In all such cases, lawmaking processes generate rules that do not reflect the values of the underlying population. In these cases individuals may face legal commands or prohibitions that conflict with their sense of justice or fairness. Individuals can oppose unjust laws through protest. Social opposition to unjust laws may trigger social norms that can have countervailing effects on legal intervention. The dynamic effects of these phenomena are the object of this paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Carbonara, Emanuela & Parisi, Francesco & von Wangenheim, Georg, 2012. "Unjust laws and illegal norms," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 285-299.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:32:y:2012:i:3:p:285-299
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2012.03.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Fabbri, Marco, 2015. "Shaping tax norms through lotteries," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 8-15.
    2. Giorgio Rampa & Margherita Saraceno, 2014. "Beliefs and Precedent: The Dynamics of Access to Justice," DEM Working Papers Series 084, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    3. Emanuela Carbonara & Giuseppina Gianfreda & Enrico Santarelli & Giovanna Vallanti, 2021. "The impact of intellectual property rights on labor productivity: do constitutions matter? [Research and development in the growth process]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 884-904.
    4. Hiller, Victor & Recoules, Magali, 2013. "Changes in divorce patterns: Culture and the law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 77-87.
    5. Shaun Larcom & Luca A. Panzone & Timothy Swanson, 2017. "Follow-the-leader? Measuring the internalisation of law," CIES Research Paper series 50-2017, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    6. Emanuela Carbonara & Enrico Santarelli & Hien Thu Tran, 2016. "De jure determinants of new firm formation: how the pillars of constitutions influence entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 139-162, June.
    7. Sophie Harnay & Élisabeth Tovar, 2017. "Obeying vs. resisting unfair laws. A structural analysis of the internalization of collective preferences on redistribution using classification trees and random forests," Working Papers hal-04141635, HAL.
    8. Govindan, Pavitra, 2022. "How do informal norms affect rule compliance: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    9. Chiara Berneri & Shaun Larcom & Congmin Peng & Po-Wen She, 2024. "The impact of law on moral and social norms: evidence from facemask fines in the UK," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 311-346, June.
    10. Parisi Francesco, 2020. "Law and Economics as We Grow Younger," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, March.
    11. Farrow, Katherine & Romaniuc, Rustam, 2019. "The stickiness of norms," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 54-62.
    12. Sophie Harnay & Elisabeth Tovar, 2017. "Obeying vs. resisting unfair laws. A structural analysis of the internalization of collective preferences on redistribution using classification trees and random forests," EconomiX Working Papers 2017-34, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    13. Larcom Shaun, 2013. "Accounting for Legal Pluralism: The Impact of Pre-colonial Institutions on Crime," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 25-59, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social norms; Countervailing effect; Expressive function; Law enforcement; Civil disobedience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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