Analyzing conflict severity: Predictions of distributive justice theory for the two-subgroup case

This paper formulates a model of conflict based on the theory of distributive justice. The model begins with a condition we termcleavage: There is a perfect correlation between the distribution of a valued good and a grouping variable such as race, ethnicity, or sex. Cleavage sets the stage for conflict. Two key elements are specified—conflict severity and subgroup effectiveness—and their mathematical representation described. The paper analyzes the special case where the conflict involves two subgroups, and focuses on conflict severity. Analysis identifies several sources of variability in conflict severity: the relative sizes of the two subgroups; whether the advantaged subgroup is the smaller or larger; whether the collectivity values personal attributes (such as noble birth or athletic skill) or instead values material possessions; and the extent and shape of inequality in the distribution of material possessions. Results indicate, among other things, that, in a collectivity which values personal attributes, the smaller is the disadvantaged subgroup, the greater is the conflict severity. In contrast, in a collectivity which values material wealth, the direction of the effect of subgroup relative size on conflict severity depends on the distributional form of the valued material possessions. Results also indicate that, for given subgroup relative size, conflict severity is higher the greater the inequality in the distribution of valued material possessions.     

Self-interest,distributive justice,and the income distribution: A theoretical fragment based on St. Anselm's postulate

The Mertonian starting idea for this paper is St. Anselm's idea that the will has two inclinations: an affection for what is to the person's own advantage and an affection for justice. We show that in decision-making situations, where the individual must choose a course of action from among a set of alternatives, the individual, subject to the two inclinations and thus guided by the twin considerations of own good and the common good as he/she forms the preference orderings for the alternatives, is in one of three states: (i) the state of Harmony, defined by perfect coincidence of the orderings induced by the two criteria; (ii) the state of Conflict, defined by perfect reversal of the orderings; and (iii) the state of Ambiguity, defined by ordering-pairs which are neither identical nor exactly opposite. The most general result states that if the number of alternatives is two, then the individual is in either Harmony or Conflict; if, however, the number of alternatives exceeds two, then Ambiguity is also a possible outcome. We then apply the framework to the case of choosing an income distribution, letting the own-good and common-good criteria dictate orderings based on personal outcomes (such as own income or own income rank) and social outcomes (such as mean income or income inequality), respectively, and examining the relation between the two orderings in five families of probability distributions. In the special case where own good is an increasing function of own income and the common good is a decreasing function of income inequality, our results show that each society has a group in Harmony (the poorest group) and one additional group, either in Conflict or in Ambiguity. Finally, we speculate about the behavioral and social implications of the three states and their configurations in the population.     

Trends in the Experience of Injustice: Justice Indexes About Earnings in Six Societies, 1991–1996

This paper examines trends in the experience of injustice in six societies—Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East and West Germany, Hungary, and Russia—between 1991 and 1996. Using data collected by the International Social Justice Project, we estimate the justice index, JI1, and its decomposition into the amount of injustice attributable to poverty and the amount of injustice attributable to inequality; and we also examine gender differences in the justice index and its decomposition. The justice index is a summary measure of individuals' justice evaluations, and therefore the paper also takes a preliminary look at the two basic quantities that underlie the justice evaluation—actual earnings and just earnings—and their determinants, investigating, for the men of East and West Germany, the actual and just returns to schooling and experience in 1991 and 1996.     

Theoretical Integration and Unification: A Focus on Justice

A commonly shared goal among scientists is to reach the ‘holy grail’ of theoretical integration or unification. We list several examples of such attempts within sociology and psychology in general and, more specifically, within the subarea of social justice. A distinction is made between the seemingly interchangeable terms integration and unification. We note the scarcity of work concerned with untangling the meaning of theoretical integration, with differentiating among forms of integration, and with mapping the variety of ways in which integration might be accomplished. The five articles published in this issue of Social Justice Research, and here briefly reviewed, address these and related questions and/or exemplify theoretical integration with a focus on justice.     

How Law Rules: Torture,Terror, and the Normative Judgments of Iraqi Judges

We present a factorial survey experiment conducted with Iraqi judges during the early military occupation of Iraq. Because U.S. soldiers are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts, there is no opportunity for these judges to express their views regarding highly publicized torture cases. As legally informed representatives of an occupied nation, however, Iraqi judges arguably have a strong claim to a normative voice on this sensitive subject. We are able to give voice to these judges in this study by using a quasi‐experimental method. This method diminishes social desirability bias in judges' responses and allows us to consider a broad range and combination of factors influencing their normative judgments. We examine why and how the U.S. effort to introduce democracy with an indeterminate rule of law produced unintended and inconsistent results in the normative judgments of Iraqi judges. A critical legal perspective anticipates the influences of indeterminacy, power, and fear in our research. More specifically, we anticipated lenient treatment for guards convicted of torture, especially in trouble cases of Coalition soldiers torturing al Qaeda prisoners. However, the results—which include cross‐level, judge‐case interaction effects—were more varied than theoretically expected. The Iraqi judges responded in disparate and polarized ways. Some judges imposed more severe sentences on Coalition guards convicted of torturing al Qaeda suspects, while others imposed more lenient sentences on the same combination of guards and suspects. The cross‐level interactions indicate that the judges who severely sentenced Coalition guards likely feared the contribution of torture tactics to increasing violence in Iraq. The judges who were less fearful of violence were more lenient and accommodating of torture by Coalition forces. The implication is that the less fearful judges were freed by an indeterminate law to advance Coalition goals through lenient punishment of torture. Our analysis suggests that the introduction of democracy and the rule of law in Iraq is a negative case in the international diffusion of American institutions. The results indicate the need for further development of a nuanced critical legal perspective.     

Exploring the Justice of Punishments: Framing, Expressiveness, and the Just Prison Sentence

This paper examines views about the justice of punishments for offenders convicted of five major types of offenses—drug, violent, corporate, property, and victimless crimes. We focus on the just punishment and the just dispersion in the punishment distribution, together with observers' framing and expressiveness; and we test for interrespondent differences. Data are drawn from six U.S. samples interviewed in 1982, a probability sample of the adult population of a major city and samples of five special groups, prison inmates, police officers, law-school and high-school students, and Job Corps trainees. Respondents' judgments were obtained using Rossi's factorial survey method. Fictitious offenders were constructed by randomly combining offender, offense, and victim characteristics; and respondents used a line-matching technique to rate the justice of punishments randomly assigned to fictitious offenders. Analysis is guided by the framework for empirical justice analysis, which provides an integrated set of procedures for estimation and testing. Results indicate that respondents in all samples save one disagree with each other on the just punishment; and the six samples yield four distinct average orderings of just prison sentences. However, large majorities in all six samples find the dispersion in the punishments experimentally put into the vignette world to be too small relative to the just dispersion. More broadly, comparing the results obtained here from the probability sample of a major city with results from a comparable study on the justice of earnings, we find two interesting symmetries—approximately 1% of the general population is contrarian, regarding earnings as a bad and time in prison as a good; and approximately 92% to 94% of the population regard earnings inequality as too high and prison-time inequality as too low. Finally, this study provides additional evidence that the general population in the United States exhibits independence of mind informing their ideas about what constitutes the just earnings and the just punishment.     

Theoretical Unification in Justice and Beyond

The goal of scientific work is to understand more and more by less and less. In this effort, theoretical unification plays a large part. There are two main types of theoretical unification—unification of different theories of the same field of phenomena and unification of theories of different fields of phenomena. Both types are usually a surprise; even when vigorously pursued, their form, when they finally appear, may differ radically from preconceptions. This paper examines a series of 21 unification surprises in the study of justice and beyond, 16 in the study of justice and 5 in the unification of 3 fundamental sociobehavioral forces—justice, status, and power—and the subsequent unification of the three sociobehavioral forces with identity and with happiness.