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Competing Narratives in a Judicial Retention Election: Feminism versus Judicial Independence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Susan M. Olson  and
Christina Batjer
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Abstract

Feminists' opposition to a state trial judge in a retention election provided an opportunity to explore important issues about legal consciousness and differences between negative and affirmative resistance. Three questions about legal consciousness and resistance are addressed: What effect does an encounter with an allegedly bad judge have on people's legal consciousness? Under what circumstances will people engage in negative or affirmative resistance against a legal encounter they perceive as unjust? What instrumental effects on institutional practices and what constitutive effects on legal consciousness can such resistance have? The article draws on narrative analysis to explore the conditions for transformation of legal consciousness and mobilization of political action in a judicial retention election.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , 1999 , pp. 123 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The authors wish to thank Michael McCann, Austin Sarat, and Alice Hearst for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

References

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