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This book challenges the prevailing common wisdom that Russians cannot rely on their law and that Russian courts are hopelessly politicized and corrupt. While acknowledging the persistence of verdicts dictated by the Kremlin in politically charged cases, the text explores how ordinary Russian citizens experience law. Relying on extensive observational research in Russia's new justice-of-the-peace courts as well as analysis of a series of focus groups, the book documents Russians' complicated attitudes regarding law. It shows that Russian judges pay close attention to the law in mundane disputes, which account for the vast majority of the cases brought to the Russian courts. Any reluctance on the part of ordinary Russian citizens to use the courts is driven primarily by their fear of the time and cost—measured in both financial and emotional terms—of the judicial process. Like their American counterparts, Russians grow more willing to pursue disputes as the social distance between them and their opponents increases; Russians are loath to sue friends and neighbors, but are less reluctant when it comes to strangers or acquaintances. The book concludes that the “rule of law” rubric is ill suited to Russia and other authoritarian polities where law matters most—but not all—of the time.

Today, hazardous work kills 2.3 million people each year and injures millions more. Among the most compelling yet controversial forms of legal protection for workers is the right to refuse unsafe work. The rise of globalization, precarious work, neoliberal politics, attacks on unions, and the idea of individual employment rights have challenged the protection of occupational health and safety for workers worldwide. This book presents the protection of refusal rights as a moral and a human rights question. The book finds that the protection of the right to refuse unsafe work, as constituted under international labor standards, is a failure and calls for a reexamination of worker health and safety policy from the ground up. The current model of protection follows an individual employment rights framework, which fails to protect workers against the inherent social inequalities within the employment relationship. To adequately protect the right to refuse as a human right, both in North America and around the world, the book argues that a broader protection must be granted under a freedom of association framework.

This book offers new perspectives on how to take analytic tools from the realm of academic research out into the real world to address pressing policy questions. As the chapters discuss, political polarization, regional conflicts, climate change, and the dramatic technological breakthroughs of the digital age have all left the standard tools of regulation floundering in the twenty-first century. These failures have, in turn, precipitated significant questions about the fundamentals of law and economics. The chapters address law and economics in diverse settings and situations, including central banking and the use of capital controls, fighting corruption in China, rural credit markets in India, pawnshops in the United States, the limitations of antitrust law, and the role of international monetary regimes. Collectively, the chapters rethink how the insights of law and economics can inform policies that provide individuals with the space and means to work, innovate, and prosper — while guiding states and international organization to regulate in ways that limit conflict, reduce national and global inequality, and ensure fairness.