Grievances and Legitimacy: The Beginnings and End of Dispute Settlement

Abstract

The study of dispute settlement within the sociology of law has, for the most part, been organized around institutionalized processes of dispute settlement, which typically has meant around dispute settlement institutions. Although some researchers—notably in anthropology—have provided detailed natural histories of disputes, including information about denouements, most dispute settlement research has focused on the immediate inputs into the institutions of dispute settlement, on processes of dispute settlement, and on dispute resolutions both as outcomes of processes and outputs of institutions. Inputs of interest have included, on the one hand, parties and their representatives and, on the other, the disputes parties bring. Process has been broadly defined to include actions that occur within dispute settlement institutions and also organized patterns of behavior, such as Eskimo song duels, that may not be institution bound. Outcomes and outputs are typically confounded and operationalized as the decisions of institutions, although we know that in some settings these decisions do not necessarily determine party outcome.