In an unprecedented move, longtime federal judge Mark Wolf resigned from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts after more than 40 years of service, publicly condemning President Donald Trump as an “existential threat to democracy.” In an essay in The Atlantic, Wolf said he could no longer remain silent under judicial ethics …
Alex, H. (2025). Fuzzy Boundaries: A Mechanism for Group Accumulation of Advantage. Sociological Theory, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751251378516 This article describes a strategic mechanism, fuzzy boundaries, that groups use to accumulate advantage. In contrast to the dominant view that rigid, well-defined boundaries maximize group rewards, I argue that ambiguity in membership criteria can, under certain conditions, more …
Satterthwaite, M. L., Sydow, K., & Polk, B. (2023). Unchecking Power and Capturing Courts: How Autocratization Erodes Independent Judicial Systems. Rutgers UL Rev., 76, 1147. The paper argues that courts have increasingly taken on legislative functions by issuing structural reform injunctions—broad, ongoing orders designed to overhaul public institutions such as prisons, schools, and mental hospitals. …
Mather, Lynn and Levin, Leslie C., When and Why Do Lawyer Organizations Seek to Influence Law? (2022). Lawyers in 21st Century Societies: Volume 2 (2022), University at Buffalo School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2022-007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4213604 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4213604 Lawyers seek to influence law through advocacy for individual clients, but also through collective efforts. …
Khalil, H. M. (2024). “This Country has Laws”: Legalism as a Tool of Entrenching Autocracy in Egypt. American Behavioral Scientist, 68(12), 1597-1615. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642241267936 (Original work published 2024) This article investigates the role of legalism and legal processes in entrenching autocratic rule in post-revolution Egypt. In the aftermath of the spectacular street protests that swept Egypt, …
Trochev, Alexei, ‘Pliant Courts, Recalcitrant Chiefs and Judicial Clientelism in Authoritarian Regimes’, in Björn Dressel, Raul Sanchez-Urribarri, and Alexander Stroh-Steckelberg (eds), Informality and Courts: Comparative Perspectives (Edinburgh, 2024; online edn, Edinburgh Scholarship Online, 18 Sept. 2025), https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781399535250.003.0005, accessed 6 Oct. 2025. How and why do some autocracies have pliant courts yet recalcitrant judicial chiefs? Trochev argue that is an unexpected consequence of empowering the …
Cummings, Scott L., The Autocratic Legal Playbook (2026). 73 UCLA Law Review, 850-868, Available at https://www.uclalawreview.org/introduction-to-the-autocratic-legal-playbook/ This Article examines the development and rapid innovation of the autocratic legal playbook in America: the strategic blueprint used to destroy democracy through law. It argues that this playbook, with roots in autocratizing countries abroad, is now being implemented …
Batesmith, A., & McEvoy, K. (2025). “Closeted” cause lawyering in authoritarian Cambodia. Law & Society Review, 59(3), 463–495. doi:10.1017/lsr.2025.29 Using Cambodia as a case study, this article examines cause lawyering in a repressive political environment. It focuses on “closeted” cause lawyering, a practice they define as the intentional pursuit of change through the legal process that is …
Kwong, Y. H. (2025). The Legal Profession in Battle: Cause Lawyers Versus State-Embedded Lawyers in Hong Kong’s Democratization. Social & Legal Studies, 34(4), 580-601. The existing literature has long recognized that cause lawyers play important roles in fighting for political justice. However, the implications of how the state responds to these lawyers have yet to be comprehensively …
Kroncke, J. J. (2025). Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism. Geo. J. Legal Ethics, 38, 75. Faith in end of history narratives emergent at the end of the twentieth century carried powerful ethical implications for engagement with authoritarian regimes. The most widespread of these narratives was modernization theory: the idea that economic development would invariably …