The Political Economy of Civil Legal Inequality

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Policy Decisions in the U.S. States

Abstract

Civil law is the channel through which many Americans adjudicate (non-criminal) legal challenges that emerge in everyday life. Important functions of civil statutes include things like preventing illegal evictions, arbitrating the detainment and deportation of immigrants, securing the rights of public assistance beneficiaries, safeguarding women from domestic violence, and resolving family disputes (e.g. child support, custody). Civil legal resources (e.g. legal representation, access to organizations that provide legal support etc.) are especially critical to low-income denizens, people of color, women and people at various intersections of these categories. Nonetheless, civil legal inequality is widespread, the most marginal populations tend to have the least access to civil legal resources. Such resources—and the policies that regulate their distribution—vary dramatically across states and are sharply defined by the institution of federalism. In this paper, we offer a systematic examination of civil legal policies over the last 30 years. Drawing on an original data set, we assess the determinants of civil legal policy outcomes (i.e. the frequency, adoption, and substance of policies) across states. We emphasize state level factors related to the larger political economy (e.g. the racial composition of people living in poverty, levels of political participation among racial and economic subgroups, the presence and nature of interest groups). Our analysis advances knowledge of civil legal inequality in a federal polity. Even more broadly, we contribute to a larger literature on the institutional contours of democratic citizenship among economically and racially marginalized populations in the United States.

Author

• Jamila D. Michener, Cornell University