Doctoral Dissertation Research: Legal Culture and Compliance

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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Legal Culture and ComplianceElizabeth BoyleWenjie LiaoUniversity of MinnesotaAbstractDespite China's numerous recent transitions and low level of democracy, the Chinese people trust and embrace their courts and legal system above any other social institutions. This research examines how and why people in an authoritarian and changing society understand, valorize, and obey the law. While some suggest that either coercion or legitimacy is the central explanation, we go further to test the interrelationship of these factors. We hypothesize that the precise role each plays will vary with the type of law considered.To better understand the role of societal transitions on support for law, we explore how memories of important historical events and figures affect the level and nature of support for law. The research design combines a social survey and in-depth interviews in a major provincial capital city, Chengdu,in southwest inland China. The survey will inquire about people's tendency toward legal (non-)compliance and their evaluation of different types of laws in terms of their legitimacy (i.e., how much they think each law reflects social values they support)and associated punishments (i.e., how likely they think the violation of certain laws will entail harsh punishment). The survey also inquires about memories of important events and figures in Chinese history. The survey will be followed by semi-structured interviews with a subsampleof the respondents. The interviews will uncover the mechanisms that shape people's perceptions of laws' legitimacy.Broader Impact: This project expands legal compliance research beyond the boundaries of the Western world.With a quarter of the world's population, China constitutes one of the largest and most influentialsocieties in transition. A careful look into legal compliance in China will deepen understanding of how power and authority shape individuals' minds. It will produce data for more comprehensive insight into Chinese society and culture that will be shared in scholarly communities inside and outside of China.