Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Law and Development: Explaining Legal Change in Emerging Economies

政治学博士论文研究：法律与发展：解释新兴经济体的法律变革

• 批准号: 0001805
• 负责人: Jennifer Widner
• 金额: $ 1.65万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-10-15 至 2001-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0001805&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

This study seeks to establish and test a theoretical framework for understanding legal change and the relationship between law and development in the emerging economies of Africa. This study asks the following question: Under what conditions will entrepreneurs in developing countries actually avail themselves of the legal framework supplied by the state? Synthesizing theoretical insights from socio-legal studies and the new institutional economics, the study argues that entrepreneurial demand for law is a function of both the level of social distance within business communities and the credibility and capacity of the state-provided legal system. The effectiveness of law in promoting economic development in emerging economies thus depends upon the interaction of informal social institutions and formal state-supplied political institutions.This theory will be tested by analyzing data collected over the course of nine months of field research on commercial law reform initiatives in Tanzania. Data includes a combination of close-ended surveys and open-ended ethnographic interviews of the owners/managers of Tanzanian firms in three cities (Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Mbeya) and independent data on legal institutions, law reform initiatives and institutional capacity in Tansania. The study seeks to make important contributions to three distinct social science disciplines: comparative politics (particularly the comparative study of political institutions in the developing world), law and development (by identifying the conditions under which law reform may contribute to the creation and development of market economies), and comparative law (by analyzing the operation of commercial law and legal systems in developing countries).

这项研究试图建立和检验一个理论框架，以了解非洲新兴经济体的法律变化以及法律与发展之间的关系。这项研究提出了以下问题：发展中国家的企业家在什么条件下才能真正利用国家提供的法律框架？这项研究综合了社会法律研究和新制度经济学的理论见解，认为企业家对法律的需求既是商业社区内部社会距离水平的函数，也是国家提供的法律体系的可信度和能力的函数。因此，法律在促进新兴经济体经济发展方面的有效性取决于非正式社会制度和正式国家提供的政治制度的相互作用。这一理论将通过分析在坦桑尼亚对商法改革倡议进行的9个月的实地研究过程中收集的数据来检验。数据包括对三个城市(达累斯萨拉姆、姆万扎和姆贝亚)的坦桑尼亚公司所有者/经理进行的封闭式调查和开放式人种学访谈，以及关于坦萨尼亚州法律机构、法律改革举措和机构能力的独立数据。这项研究力求对三个不同的社会科学学科作出重要贡献：比较政治学(特别是对发展中国家政治机构的比较研究)、法律与发展(通过确定法律改革可能有助于市场经济产生和发展的条件)和比较法(通过分析发展中国家的商法和法律制度的运作)。