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Studying Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation: Mixing Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Penelope Canan  and
George W. Pring
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Abstract

The Petition Clause of the First Amendment protects any peaceful, legal attempt to promote or discourage governmental action at all governmental levels and all governmental branches. This paper describes our examination of SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) cases where citizens who contact the government are sued by the interests they oppose. We present the findings of a legal document analysis and summarize ongoing research to understand the social dynamic processes and extralegal outcomes of SLAPPs. The purposeful blend of qualitative and quantitative methods is highlighted as an appropriate approach for answering micro- and macrosociological questions involved in these cross-institutional disputes.

Type
Research Note
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , 1988 , pp. 385 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

This paper is based on the work of the Political Litigation Project, an interdisciplinary research program of the Department of Sociology and College of Law, University of Denver. Support for the work has been provided by the Hughes Research and Development Fund of the College of Law, University of Denver, which was created to encourage empirical sociolegal studies. We are personally indebted to Nancy Reichman, Gloria Berndt, and Paul Colomy for their comments and criticisms throughout many stages of this work.

References

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Amendment Cited

U.S. CONST. amend. I.Google Scholar

Cases Cited

Bill Johnson's Restaurants v. NLRB, 461 U.S. 731 (1983).Google Scholar
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