Editor's Introduction: Understanding Regulatory Enforcement

This issue of Law & Policy adds to the growing body of empirical case studies of decision-making and enforcement in regulatory agencies. Summarizing that research, regulatory enforcement styles can be described in terms of two dimensions, one concerning the ways in which regulatory violations are defined and punished, the other concerning outcomes, described in policy-evaluative terms. In explaining variation in enforcement style, existing studies point to three sets of factors: characteristics of the regulatory "legal design"; features of agencies' "task environment"; and the regulatory "political environment." Weighting the relative importance of these factors, however, is difficult because of the number and fluidity of variables and the adaptiveness of regulatory agencies.     

Calavita's Invitation to Law & Society: Introduction to the Symposium

This essay introduces a Law & Social Inquiry symposium on Kitty Calavita's book Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law (2010) that features comments on the law and society enterprise by Jeannine Bell, Austin Sarat, and Christopher Tomlins. It briefly discusses the commentators' views of this enterprise as revealed in their essays and challenges points made by each of them. It goes on to discuss the book's suitability as a student‐oriented introduction to the field of law and society, filling a gap the commentators left open.     

Symposium,Cannabis—Legal,Ethical, and Compliance Issues: Introduction

This introduction reviews six articles presented at the 2020 symposium, “Legal, Ethical, and Compliance Issues in Emerging Markets: Cannabis in the States.” Scholars from across the United States and Canada presented research using the lens of law and strategy, ethics, and compliance to focus on the U.S. cannabis industry. The articles are discussed within the framework of institutional voids common to emerging markets, which may include a lack of a fully developed regulatory system and issues related to financial markets. These institutional problems create complexity for consumers, producers, municipalities, and state governments in this industry, and make success for this market segment more challenging. The introduction contributes to the discussion by reviewing securities litigation involving the cannabis industry generally and specifically in light of some of the issues identified by authors in the special issue.     

第一次全国劳动教养立法理论研讨会综述

2 0 0 1年 3月 2 9日— 4月 1日 ,全国劳动教养立法理论研讨会在北京召开。会议全面深入地讨论了劳动教养立法的基本理论和实践问题 ,并就劳动教养的法治化建构和公民权利的保护与限制等问题进行了专题研讨。这是我国历史上第一次全国劳动教养立法理论研讨会。