The Precarious Legitimacy of Legal Standardization: A Case Study of Four Model Public Health Laws

• In Event: 067 - Section on Science, Knowledge and Technology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Legitimizing Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the promulgation of model public health laws is an important form of legal standardization, but one that faces particularly high barriers to legitimacy. Given the desire for—but lack of—a robust evidentiary basis for legal standardization in public health, combined with the inherently political nature of its content, public health law presents a difficult case for legitimate standardization. How do developers of model public health laws, which are produced outside of a democratic legislative process and on a foundation of fundamentally uncertain scientific evidence, overcome these challenges and promote the legitimacy of their products? To answer this question, I analyze the development of four model public health laws produced in part by the same academic legal research center during the years 1999-2007. I describe the multiple strategies developers use to promote the technical and political legitimacy of the model public health laws they produce. I examine the variation in achievement of legitimacy among my four cases, and explain what factors might account for these differences. This study contributes to the existing literature on standardization by revealing strategies even standardizers in weak positions may deploy in their efforts to secure it, and suggesting that the ultimate legitimacy of model public health laws might be best understood as “splintered”—present for some audiences, and absent for others.

Author

• Arielle Woloshin Tolman, Northwestern University