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"China's green transition is often perceived as a lesson in authoritarian efficiency. In just a few years, the state managed to improve air quality, contain dissent, and restructure local industry. Much of this was achieved through top-down, "blunt force" solutions, such as forcibly shuttering or destroying polluting factories. This book argues that China's blunt force regulation is actually a sign of weak state capacity and ineffective bureaucratic control. Integrating case studies with quantitative evidence, it shows how widespread industry shutdowns are used, not to scare polluters into respecting pollution standards, but to scare bureaucrats into respecting central orders. These measures have improved air quality in almost all Chinese cities, but at immense social and economic cost. This book delves into the negotiations, trade-offs, and day-to-day battles of local pollution enforcement to explain why governments employ such costly measures, and what this reveals about a state's powers to govern society"--

"This book will be of interest to researchers and students of law and society, political economy, anthropology, and Asian studies. It offers an original understanding of the paradoxical effects of law in the survival strategies of people who are caught to live and work in precarious circumstances"--

"Lava Jato, a transnational bribery case that started in Brazil and spread throughout Latin America, upended elections and collapsed governments. Why did the investigation gain momentum in some countries but not others? The book traces reforms that enhanced prosecutors' capacity to combat white-collar crime and shows that Lava Jato became a full-blown anti-corruption crusade where reforms were coupled with the creation of aggressive taskforces. For some, prosecutors' unconventional methods were necessary and justified. Others saw dangerous affronts to due process and democracy. Given these controversies, how did voters react to a once-in-a-generation attempt to clean politics? Can prosecutors trigger hope, conveying a message of possible regeneration? Or does aggressive prosecution erode the tacit consensus around the merits of anti-corruption? Prosecutors, Voters and The Criminalization of Corruption in Latin America is a study of the impact of accountability through criminalization, one that dissects the drivers and dilemmas of resolute transparency efforts"--

"This book traces the emergence of secularism as a way of ordering religion-state relations in colonial and post-colonial Northern Nigeria. The book draws on extensive research in six archival repositories on two continents to provide a novel and comprehensive historiography"--

Malcolm Feeley is one of the founding giants of the law and society field, whose vast scholarship examines legal process from the inner workings of criminal courts to the possibility of prison reform. This volume offers essays by leading law and society scholars who reflect on, analyze, and expand Feeley's scholarship.