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Litigation as a Local Political Resource: Courts in Controversies over Land Use in France, Germany, and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Jefferey M. Sellers
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Abstract

In western Europe as well as in the United States, litigation often operates as a means of political contestation. This article draws on a study of land use disputes in similar U.S., French, and west German metropolitan areas to analyze cross-national differences in the way local political actors employ courts. More an extension of pluralist policymaking patterns in the United States, political litigation in the European settings occurs as part of starker challenges to corporatist and statist patterns. The contrast between centralized and federal governmental arrangements helps to explain why the political consequences of litigation in the French and the German settings also differ.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , 1995 , pp. 475 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

Previous versions of this article were presented at the Annual Meetings of the Law and Society Association and the American Political Science Association in 1992. The author thanks participants in those sessions and two anonymous reviewers for suggestions. The Berlin Program for German and European Studies of the Free University of Berlin and the Social Science Research Council, the Council on European Studies, the German Academic Exchange Service and the Graduate School of Yale University helped support the research.

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