Doctoral Dissertation Research in Law and Social Science

法院依赖于诉讼当事人--个人、政府机构、企业以及越来越多的利益集团--来引起他们对政策问题的关注。要了解法院的议程，关键是要确定诉讼当事人如何决定向法院提出索赔。这篇论文为卡里·科利亚尼斯提供了支持，以审查一组重要的诉讼当事人--利益集团--如何决定向法院提出哪些索赔。虽然学者们已经开发了解释个人如何选择将索赔提交法院的模型，但对组织中争议选择的过程了解要少得多。科利亚尼斯先生的论文研究通过开发和测试组织争端选择模型，填补了社会法理解方面的这一空白。这项研究调查了活跃在环境政策中的利益集团，利用了对25个利益集团的工作人员和法律顾问的采访，以及对法庭案情摘要和其他主要来源的分析。除了促进对组织争端选择的理解外，这项研究对争端选择的关注还有助于审查法律规则如何影响利益集团的决策。具体地说，考察了环境法规中关于地位、证据和律师费等事项的变化，以了解它们如何影响利益集团关于将哪些案件提交法院的决定。因此，该项目也有助于对影响利益集团行为的社会法律动态的基本理解。

Courts depend on litigants -- individuals, government agencies, businesses and increasingly, interest groups -- to bring policy issues to their attention. To understand the agendas of courts, it is crucial to determine how litigants decide to bring claims to court. This dissertation grant provides support to Cary Coglianese to examine how one important set of litigants, interest groups, decides which claims to file in court. While scholars have developed models explaining how individuals select claims to bring to court, the process of dispute selection in organizations is much less understood. Mr. Coglianese's dissertation research fills in this gap in sociolegal understanding by developing and testing a model of organizational dispute selection. Investigating interest groups active in environmental policy, the study draws on interviews with the staff and legal counsel of 25 interest groups, as well as on an analysis of court briefs and other primary sources. In addition to advancing understanding of organizational dispute selection, the study's focus on dispute selection facilitates examination of how legal rules influence the decision-making of interest groups. Specifically, variations in environmental statutes on such matters as standing, proof, and attorney's fees are examined to see how they influence interest groups' decisions about which cases to bring to court. Therefore, the project also contributes to basic understanding about the sociolegal dynamics influencing interest group behavior.