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This article explores how legal intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change. We suggest the increasing complexity and ambiguity of legal rules coupled with the shift from government to governance provide legal intermediaries greater opportunities to influence law and social change. Drawing from new institutional sociology, we suggest rule-intermediaries shape legal and social change, with varying degrees of success, in two ways: (1) law is filtered through non-legal logics emanating from various organizational fields and (2) law is professionalized by non-legal professionals. We draw from case studies in the United States and France to show how intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change.

While the concept of legal culture has been receiving a growing attention from scholars, this research often overemphasizes the similarity of the opinions held by different segments of population. Furthermore, the relationship of migration and the change of legal-cultural attitudes has not received particular attention. Drawing on 70 in-depth interviews with the immigrants of the early 1990s from the former Soviet Union to Israel and the secular Israeli Jews, this chapter provides a comprehensive account of the various aspects of legal culture of these groups. The second important finding is the persistence of the legal-cultural attitudes and perceptions over time.

This paper aims to address the money laundering risk posed by politically exposed person’s (PEP’s) controlled legal entities. International standards and national legislation require enhanced due diligence of political office holders but no specific requirements exist on entities controlled by PEPs. While regulators expect the stringent AML risk mitigation regarding this type of entities, financial institutions have no guidelines to follow. This gap produces inconsistent due diligence measures applied to entities with significant PEPs’ connection.

The paper uses comparative analysis to identify discrepancies between legal requirements and their interpretation. Moreover, an empirical approach results in a standardised solution to address these discrepancies.

The paper defines the concept of politically exposed entities and the applicable due diligence framework. Anticipating legislative measures, it proposes to introduce this concept via best practices of financial institutions and private banking initiatives such as the Wolfsberg Group.

The research addresses the topic from a legal point of view. However, the implementation of proposed ideas depends on decisions which are political by nature and are not within the scope of this paper.

The paper aims at stimulating a debate in both the private and public sector to form a consistent approach to AML due diligence of legal entities associated to PEPs.

This paper responds to an identified need to study how legal entities connected to PEPs should be defined and monitored.

The purpose of this paper is to draw from organizational ecology and institutional theory, the authors suggest that there will be a curvilinear relationship between legal system uncertainty and foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction in Southeast Asia. The authors extend theory by arguing that this is because uncertainty will provide opportunities for FDI that seek this form of operating environment, leveraging legal system uncertainty as a basis for competitive advantage.

The authors test and find support for the hypotheses using FDI data from nine Southeast Asian countries for the years 1995-2005.

In this paper, the authors hypothesize and find that the relationship between legal system uncertainty and FDI attraction is curvilinear in nature, such that FDI attraction decreases with legal system uncertainty down to an inflection point, but then increases beyond this point; and that the relationship between legal system uncertainty and FDI attraction is moderated by government intervention in the host country economy, such that the strength of this relationship is greater when government intervention is high rather than when it is low. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future inquiry are presented.

Conventional wisdom suggests that legal system uncertainty will negatively affect FDI attraction. However, to date, research on the effects of legal system uncertainty on FDI attraction in emerging markets has received very little attention. The aim of this research study is to shed new light on how, under certain conditions, legal system uncertainty will attract FDI in Southeast Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing body of work in the area of Islamic banking by investigating the regulatory accommodation process of Islamic banking in Italy.

The method used is essentially based upon an analysis of laws, regulations and jurisprudence/legal doctrine.

In Italy, where Muslim represent, from a religious point of view, the second largest immigrant community, no Shari’a-compliant institution has been authorised yet, but no legal obstacle is laid down.

The paper examines the accommodation process of Shari’a-compliant banking within the Italian system of banking and business law. Therefore, the paper is mainly based on the Italian jurisprudence/legal doctrine. Moreover, no comprehensive analysis of Islamic banking principles is provided.

The paper, investigating the accommodation process of Islamic banking in the Italian banking system, shows any legal and regulatory obstacles refraining Muslims living in Italy from living according to Islam and complying with the general regulation of undertakings.

Examination of the topic is originally undertaken because the investigation of Islamic banking in the Italian legal framework matches the business-based approach with the cultural-based approach as complementary analyses.

Western liberal states are considered to be secular in nature, with a presumed neutrality of state laws from religious values and norms. However, this claim overlooks the inherent influence that religious groups (namely, dominant Christian churches and groups) have as informal institutions. According to neo-institutionalists, informal institutions, like these religious norms and values, interact with and influence formal state institutions. As such, it could be argued that the norms and values of dominant religious groups within the state have a role in shaping governmental policies and the law. This is evident when examining the debates around multiculturalism and religious freedom that arise in liberal democratic states such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (UK). In particular, the recent Sharia debates that have arisen in each of these jurisdictions illustrate that the secular state legal system is often positioned as “neutral” and free from religious influence – and thus incompatible with, and unable to, accommodate the religious orders of minority groups. However, this idea that the state is entirely free from religious values is a fallacy that ignores the historical role and influence of Christian churches in each state. In opposing the accommodation of Sharia in private dispute resolution, common arguments include the inherent patriarchal nature of the religion leading to further oppression and disadvantage of Muslim women when seeking resolution of personal law matters (i.e. divorce and property settlements). The secular state law is positioned against this (and religion more broadly) as the “fair” and “just” alternative for minority women – protector of individual rights. Though this ignores the inherent gender hierarchies embedded within formal state institutions, including the legal system that has been implicitly shaped by religious moral values to varying degrees – where minority women are also faced with a set of gender biases. When combined with the internal pressures from their communities and families this can often place them in a double-bind of disadvantage. In this paper, I draw on feminist institutionalism to examine the informal institutional norms that arise from dominant Christian churches in Australia, Canada, and the UK. In particular, the ways in which these informal norms have influenced the development of state laws, and continue to operate alongside the legal system to shape and influence governmental policies, laws, and ultimately the outcomes for Muslim women.

In the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s, the abolition of capital punishment was virtually unthinkable. However, a new form of abolitionism – which I call Rule of Law abolitionism – has raised the hopes of death penalty opponents. In this chapter, I elucidate the logic of the Rule of Law abolitionist argument, distinguishing it from its more familiar doctrinal and moral variants. I then assess its strengths and weaknesses. On the basis of this critique, I indicate the route Rule of Law abolitionism must travel to bring about the demise of the death penalty.

Pledging collateral to secure loans is a prominent feature in financing contracts around the world. Existing theories disagree on why borrowers pledge collateral. It is even more challenging to understand why in some countries collateral coverage exceeds, for example, 300% of the value of a loan. This study looks at the association between collateral coverage and country-level governance and various institutional proxies. It investigates the economic implications of steep collateral coverage and sketches policy options to lower ex-ante asymmetric information and ex-post agency problems. Within this framework, should a lender collect the debt forcibly on default and liquidated assets fetch prices below outstanding loan values, the lender’s loss is covered through credit insurance, which would significantly reduce the need for steep collateral coverage. This proposal may increase level of private credit, investment and growth; particularly, in a number of developing countries where collateral spread is the main inhibitor of finance.

The purpose of this study is to apply the institution-based view and resource dependence theory in arguing that perceived deficiencies in a legal service sector where a foreign subsidiary operates will influence the intensity of its political ties with actors in both the regulatory and legal arenas. The authors further theorized that these relationships will vary across governance environments.

The research context for this study was multinational enterprises (MNE) wholly owned foreign subsidiaries and international joint ventures (IJVs) operating in the Philippines and Thailand. Data for most variables in this study came from primary survey data collected in 2018 from senior managers of MNE WOSs and IJVs operating in the Philippines and Thailand.

The authors’ analysis of 352 foreign subsidiaries operating in the Philippines and Thailand show that, in a flawed democracy, perceived deficient legal services enhance the intensity of foreign subsidiary political ties with government actors in both the regulatory and legal arena. However, in a hybrid regime, perceived deficient legal services enhance only the intensity of foreign subsidiary political ties with government actors in the regulatory arena. The authors’ findings also suggest that the relationship between perceived deficiencies in legal service sector and the intensity of political ties is stronger for foreign subsidiaries that operate in heavily regulated industries across both a flawed democracy and hybrid regime. Conversely, the authors do not find the market orientation of these foreign subsidiaries to play a role in this process.

The authors’ study was unable to control for whether managerial perceptions of deficient legal services were well informed at the local or federal level. This issue raises the question of will the presence of an in-house legal department influence managerial perceptions with regard to deficiencies within a legal service sector? Based on these limitations, the authors suggest that future research can further extend political ties research by using a fine-grained analysis in investigating the antecedents of managerial perceptions of legal services within different legal jurisdictions.

The political ties literature has largely argued that political ties are more prevalent in environmental contexts comprising institutional voids as MNEs attempt to mitigate volatility associated with the lack of developed institutional infrastructure (e.g. Blumentritt & Nigh, 2002; Bucheli et al., 2018). However, the concept of institutional voids is very broad and still rather abstract in nature. Hence, scholars have yet to fully understand what types of institutional voids may drive MNE foreign subsidiary political tie intensity in varying governance contextsThe authors’ study attempts to contribute to this important line of research by investigating how one type of institutional void, namely, perceived deficiencies in the legal service sector, can influence the intensity of political ties in varying governance environments.

The evolution of property right institutions and their consequence on investment decisions are central issues in the political economy of development. Effective and well‐defined property rights are deemed essential in providing the preconditions for economic growth. The importance of property right arrangements stems from the fact that they impact and alter the distribution of income. Economists are, therefore, in agreement that market transactions are more efficient when property rights are enforced. According to North and Thomas (1973), observed variations in economic performance across countries were related to the presence (or absence, for that matter) of property right institutions. Recently, Beseley (1995), and Feder and Feeny (1991), have argued that economic development and well‐established property right institutions are positively correlated. Meanwhile, there are two arguments in the literature in favour of establishing property rights institutions. First, assigning ownership of valuable assets and designating the parties bearing the rewards and costs is expected to strengthen market forces. In particular, the private control over assets and the ability to reap the rewards from exploiting these assets create incentives for investment and production. Second, enforcing contractual agreements is expected to provide economic agents with the incentives to use resources effectively and efficiently. When property rights are poorly defined, contracts become hard to enforce and fraud and corruption go unpunished. Bureaucrats responsible for formulating government policies will use their positions to influence the allocation of resources whereby, business managers find themselves forced to buy favours. The need to pay substantial bribes will, therefore, reduce the entrepreneur's incentives to invest and impose a significant burden on economic growth. Empirical evidence based on cross‐country comparisons does indeed suggest that corruption has large, adverse effects on private investment and economic growth. Mauro (1996) showed that when a country improves its standing on the corruption index, say, from 6 to 8 (0 being the most corrupt, 10 the least) it will experience a 4 percentage point increase in its investment rate and a 0.5 percentage point increase in its annual per capita GDP growth rate. These large effects suggest that policies that establish institutions to curb corruption could have significant payoffs. Political corruption will also undercut the government's ability to raise revenues from issuing licenses and permits, and lead to ever‐higher tax rates being levied on fewer and fewer taxpayers. This, in turn, reduces the government's ability to provide essential public goods, including the rule of law. When institutions are weak, bribes can alter outcomes of the legal and regulatory process by inducing the government either to fail to stop illegal activities (such as drug dealing or pollution) or unduly favour one party over another in court cases or other legal proceedings. Furthermore, theoretical and empirical studies have shown that corruption and political control usually raise transaction costs, uncertainty, and are associated with free‐rider problems. These costs will, therefore, constitute a dead‐weight loss to the society. Unless political and economic reforms are made, these inefficiencies will certainly hamper growth and development.