The Stanford Program in Law and Society presents its Third Conference for Junior Researchers, The Impact of Law on Behavior, May 13-14, 2016. Abstracts are due by Jan. 17, 2016.
The Third Conference for Junior Researchers invites the submission of papers that explore the impact of law on behavior. Numerous studies from different disciplines have shown the complexity of human behavior and the multifaceted ways in which behavior is influenced by external factors, including the legal system and its norms. We welcome submissions of research papers in all fields of law and from various disciplines that analyze, discuss, or reflect on the conference theme. The papers can make use of any relevant approach such as, but not limited to sociological, anthropological, psychological, historical, comparative, or economic. We encourage papers that involve one or more empirical methods of investigation (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods).
We seek to investigate if, when, and how law affects people’s behavior. Assuming that traditionally law was created, and intended, to guide and shape behavior, we seek to understand to what extent it actually does so. What are the aspirational impacts of law on people’s behavior and what are the empirical facts of these impacts on the ground? How do people react or fail to react to law, the legal system, or legal actors? How are people’s behaviors transformed with the introduction of new laws? Are behaviors influenced by the enforcement or lack of enforcement of existing legal rules, or by the ways legal actors interpret and apply those rules? How do different social groups behave under similar legal rules?
The conference committee would like to pay tribute to Professor John Henry Merryman who passed away in August 2015. Professor Merryman was an internationally renowned expert on art and cultural property law and a prolific scholar in the field of comparative law and society. Alongside the conference’s main theme, we also invite submissions in the field of art and cultural property law and in the field of comparative law to be presented in a special panel in honor of Professor Merryman at the conference. Please indicate in your submission if you are applying to be considered for this special panel.
