Civil Justice Reconsidered

Prosecutes the civil litigation system and proposes practical reforms to increase access to the courts and reduce costs. Civil litigation has come under fire in recent years. Some critics portray a system of dishonest lawyers and undeserving litigants who prevail too often, and are awarded too much money. Others criticize the civil justice system for being out of reach for many who have suffered real injury. But contrary to these perspectives and popular belief, the civil justice system in the United States is not out of control. In Civil Justice Reconsidered, Steven Croley demonstrates that civil litigation is, for the most part, socially beneficial. An effective civil litigation system is accessible to parties who have suffered legal wrongs, and it is reliable in the sense that those with stronger claims tend to prevail over those with weaker claims. However, while most of the system’s failures are overstated, they are not wholly off base; civil litigation often imposes excessive costs that, among other unfortunate consequences, impede access to the courts, and Croley offers ways to reform civil litigation in the interest of justice for potential plaintiffs and defendants, and for the rule of law itself. A better litigation system matters only because of what is at stake for real people, and Civil Justice Reconsidered speaks to the thought leaders, litigation reformers, members of the bar and bench, and policymakers who can answer the call for reforming civil litigation in the United States.

"In Civil Justice Reconsidered, Steven Croley demonstrates that civil litigation is, for the most part, socially beneficial. An effective civil litigation system is accessible to parties who have suffered legal wrongs, and it is reliable in the sense that those with stronger claims tend to prevail over those with weaker claims. However, while most of the system's failures are overstated, they are not wholly off base; civil litigation often imposes excessive costs that, among other unfortunate consequences, impede access to the courts, and Croley offers ways to reform civil litigation in the interest of justice for potential plaintiffs and defendants, and for the rule of law itself"--Publisher's web site, viewed February 10, 2017.

At the very end of the Civil War, a military court convicted Lambdin P. Milligan and his coconspirators in Indiana of fomenting a general insurrection and sentenced them to hang. On appeal, in Ex parte Milligan the US Supreme Court sided with the conspirators, ruling that it was unconstitutional to try American citizens in military tribunals when civilian courts were open and functioning—as they were in Indiana. Far from being a relic of the Civil War, the landmark 1866 decision has surprising relevance in our day, as this volume makes clear. Cited in four Supreme Court decisions arising from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ex parte Milligan speaks to constitutional questions raised by the war on terror; but more than that, the authors of Ex parte Milligan Reconsidered contend, the case affords an opportunity to reevaluate the history of wartime civil liberties from the Civil War era to our own. After the Civil War, critics of Reconstruction pointed to Milligan as an example of the Republican Party’s abuse of federal power; even historians sympathetic to Lincoln have found it necessary to apologize for his administration’s record on civil liberties during the Civil War. However, the authors of this volume argue that this distorts the nineteenth-century understanding of the Bill of Rights, neglects international law entirely, and, equally striking, ignores the experience of African Americans. In reviving Milligan, the Supreme Court has implicitly cast Reconstruction as a “war on terror” in which terrorist insurgencies threatened and eventually halted the assertion of black freedom by the Republican Party, the Union Army, and African Americans themselves. Returning African Americans to the center of the story, and recognizing that Lincoln and Republicans were often forced to restrict white civil liberties in order to establish black civil rights and liberties, Ex parte Milligan Reconsidered suggests an entirely different account of wartime civil liberties, one with profound implications for US racial history and constitutional law in today’s war on terror.

President Grant Reconsidered shatters myths about America's 18th president.

This book reviews the knowledge corpus about access to civil justice across disciplines and legal traditions and proposes a new research framework for civil justice reform. This framework is intended to foster further critical analysis of the justice system in a systematic and organized way. In particular, the framework underlines the tensions between different values considered as central to the civil justice system, and in doing so potentially allows for conscious, reflected and enlightened choices about the values that are to be prioritized in the reform of justice systems.

"Christopher Columbus' voyage changed the world forever because the era of racial slavery and colonialism that it started built the world in the first place. The irreversible environmental damage of history's first planet-sized political and economic system is responsible for our present climate crisis. Reparations calls for us to make the world over again: this time, justly. The project of reparations and racial justice in the 21st century must take climate justice head on. The book develops arguments about the role of racial capitalism in global politics, addresses other views of reparations, and summarizes perspectives on environmental racism"--

This book explores contemporary civil-military relations in the United States. Much of the canonical literature on civil-military relations was either written during or references the Cold War, while other major research focuses on the post-Cold War era, or the first decade of the twenty-first century. A great deal has changed since then. This book considers the implications for civil-military relations of many of these changes. Specifically, it focuses on factors such as breakdowns in democratic and civil-military norms and conventions; intensifying partisanship and deepening political divisions in American society; as well as new technology and the evolving character of armed conflict. Chapters are organized around the principal actors in civil-military relations, and the book includes sections on the military, civilian leadership, and the public. It explores the roles and obligations of each. The book also examines how changes in contemporary armed conflict influence civil-military relations. Chapters in this section examine the cyber domain, grey zone operations, asymmetric warfare and emerging technology. The book thus brings the study of civil-military relations into the contemporary era, in which new geopolitical realities and the changing character of armed conflict combine with domestic political tensions to test, if not potentially redefine, those relations.

Richard Nixon's notoriety regarding Watergate and foreign policy obscured the domestic achievements of his administration. Now, in this major work of revisionist history, Joan Hoff asserts that the late president's reforms in welfare, civil rights, and economic and environmental policy greatly overshadowed the things for which he is better remembered.

Key topics in the ongoing evolution of environmental governance, with new and updated material. This survey of current issues and controversies in environmental policy and management is unique in its thematic mix, broad coverage of key debates, and in-depth analysis. The contributing authors, all distinguished scholars or practitioners, offer a comprehensive examination of key topics in the continuing evolution of environmental governance, with perspectives from public policy, public administration, political science, international relations, sustainability theory, environmental economics, risk analysis, and democratic theory. The second edition of this popular reader has been thoroughly revised, with updated coverage and new topics. The emphasis has shifted from sustainability to include sustainable cities, from domestic civic environmentalism to global civil society, and from global interdependence to the evolution of institutions of global environmental governance. A general focus on devolution of authority in the United States has been sharpened to address the specifics of contested federalism and fracking, and the treatment of flexibility now explores the specifics of regulatory innovation and change. New chapters join original topics such as environmental justice and collaboration and conflict resolution to address highly salient and timely topics: energy security; risk assessment, communication, and technology innovation; regulation-by-revelation; and retrospective regulatory analysis. The topics are organized and integrated by the book's “3R” framework: reconceptualizing governance to reflect ecological risks and interdependencies better, reconnecting with stakeholders, and reframing administrative rationality. Extensive cross-references pull the chapters together. A broad reference list enables readers to pursue topics further. Contributors Regina S. Axelrod, Robert F. Durant, Kirk Emerson, Daniel J. Fiorino, Anne J. Kantel, David M. Konisky, Michael E. Kraft, Jennifer Kuzma, Richard Morgenstern, Tina Nabatchi, Rosemary O'Leary, Barry Rabe, Walter A. Rosenbaum, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Paul Wapner

For nation-states, the contexts for developing and implementing policy have become more complex and demanding. Yet policy studies have not fully responded to the challenges and opportunities represented by these developments. Governance literature has drawn attention to a globalising and network-based policy world, but politics and the role of the state have been de-emphasised. This book addresses this imbalance by reconsidering traditional policy-analytic concepts, and re-developing and extending new ones, in a melded approach defined as systemic institutionalism. This links policy with governance and the state and suggests how real-world issues might be substantively addressed.