Doctoral Dissertation Research - The Face of the State: The Role of Social Status and Official Position in the Mobilization of Authority

主要研究者：Charles Epp和Shannon PortilloTitle：博士论文研究：国家的面貌：社会地位和官职在权力动员中的作用[0715298]摘要社会身份和地位影响人们如何概念化权利和动员法律的观察，对学者如何思考法律产生了重大影响。本项目旨在通过研究社会身份和地位如何影响权威的概念化和动员，将法律动员的研究扩展到一个新的方向。随着政府就业变得更加多样化，越来越多的公职人员面临着所谓的权力悖论，即一个人拥有很高的官员地位，但缺乏传统的社会地位，在这种情况下，权力的调动可能特别困难。法律与社会传统为权利和法律如何与身份和社会地位相互作用提供了丰富的见解。首先，虽然权利和法律为弱势群体提供了潜在的强大资源，但它们也限制了弱势群体可用的选择和战略范围。第二，虽然动员权利和法律的人范围很广，但社会地位较低的人可能特别犹豫，或者采取与地位较高的人不同的方式。该项目将研究在治安和城市管理两种情况下当局的动员及其与社会地位的相互作用。在美国，警察传递着权威的标志性形象：他们身披官方身份的外衣，在与普通市民互动的过程中行使权威。城市管理者对复杂的公共官僚机构行使权力；他们通常没有警察所享有的权威的视觉暗示，但在他们的组织内，他们的官方地位是所有员工都知道的。在每一种情况下，就业都越来越多样化。本项目采用开放式访谈和封闭式调查，对城市行政人员和警察进行调查，以检查对权威的挑战的频率和类型的变化，权威的概念，以及动员权威的策略的范围和类型，特别是与官员的社会地位有关。研究结果可能对我们如何看待官方地位、权威，以及最终如何看待国家本身具有重要意义。研究结果将增进对代表性不足的群体成员如何应对其法律权威面临的挑战的理解。由于初步数据表明应对策略包括援引法律或法律规则，因此本研究的一个可能含义是，随着国家就业变得更加多样化，由于缺乏传统社会地位的官员通过援引法律或法律规则来应对对其权威的挑战，国家的面貌可能变得更加“合法化”。这也可能对政策和政府官员的培训产生影响。

Primary Investigators: Charles Epp and Shannon PortilloTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Face of the State: The Role of Social Status and Official Position in the Mobilization of Authority 0715298AbstractThe observation that social identity and status influence how people conceptualize rights and mobilize the law has significantly influenced how scholars think about law. This project aims to extend research on the mobilization of law in a new direction by examining how social identity and status influences the conceptualization and mobilization of authority. As government employment becomes more diverse, a growing number of public officials confront what may be called a power paradox, a condition in which a person has high official status but lacks traditional social status and in which the mobilization of authority may be especially problematic. The law and society tradition offers rich insights into how rights and law interact with identity and social status. First, although rights and law offer potentially powerful resources on behalf of the disadvantaged, they also constrain the range of options and strategies available to the disadvantaged. Second, although a wide range of people mobilize rights and law, those with lower social status may be especially hesitant to do so, or may do so in ways different from those with higher status. This project will study the mobilization of authority and its interaction with social status in two contexts, policing and city management. Police officers convey iconic images of authority in America: they carry the trappings of official status and exercise authority on the street in interactions with ordinary citizens. City managers exercise their authority over complex public bureaucracies; they typically do not have the visual cues of authority enjoyed by police officers, but, within their organizations, their official status is well known to all employees. In each setting, employment is increasingly diverse. This project uses open-ended interviews and close-ended surveys of city administrators and police officers to examine variations in the frequency and types of challenges to authority, conceptualizations of authority, and the range and types of strategies for mobilizing authority, particularly in relation to officials' social status. The results may have important implications for how we think about official status, authority, and, ultimately, the state itself. The results will enhance understanding of how members of underrepresented groups cope with challenges to their legal authority. As preliminary data indicate that coping strategies include invocation of the law or legal rules, a possible implication of the proposed research is that, as state employment becomes more diverse, the face of the state may become more "legalized" as officials lacking traditional social status cope with challenges to their authority by invoking the law or legal rules. There may also be implications for policy and for training of government officials.