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Litigating within Relationships: Disputes and Disturbance in the Regulatory Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Cary Coglianese
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Abstract

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This article reports data that contrast with an extended tradition of viewing litigation as incompatible with ongoing relationships. Within the regulatory process at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nongovernmental actors having the most sustained relationships with EPA are the ones most likely to engage in litigation against the agency. Litigation within regulatory relationships is not explained by existing theory, which treats litigation largely as a function of relationships. A disturbance theory of disputing, which focuses on how litigation interacts with existing relationships, provides a more robust account of litigation generally and of its compatibility with ongoing regulatory relationships.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , 1996 , pp. 735 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This article is based on research supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (No. SES-9211920) and a Gerald R. Ford Fellowship from the University of Michigan. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1995 meeting of the Law and Society Association and at faculty workshops at Harvard University. I am grateful to the participants in these sessions for their suggestions. I am especially indebted to those who gave of their time to read and comment on earlier versions of this work, among them Arthur Applbaum, John Applegate, Richard Hall, David Hart, David King, John Kingdon, John Lande, Richard Lempert, Noga Morag Levine, Mark Moore, Kim Lane Scheppele, Peter Strauss, Michael Strine, and several anonymous reviewers.

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Statute

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