One of the classic stories of how dictators maintain power is the selective distribution of patronage. It turns out that law schools can be part of that patronage. Many dictators have cared quite a bit about regulating legal education as a means of ensuring coercive control. In my work with a few newly democratizing countries, and in some preliminary research, I have discovered that it turns out that a very controversial issue in creating (or re-creating) a legal system can be how many law schools there are in that country. Dictators have favored increasing the number of law schools in several countries–places in North Africa and the Middle East are those I am most familiar with–as a means of ensuring coercive control.
More law schools means more lawyers, and more lawyers means that lawyers have lesser social status and lesser wealth. Lesser status and wealth makes lawyers less powerful and therefore less threatening to dictatorial control. More law schools also means more governmental resources being distributed to more–and potentially more geographically distributed–parts of a country. Just as other forms of governmental resources can be used to buy off threats, so too can resources in the form of the creation of new law schools.
Posted by David Fontana on June 23, 2016 at 08:50 AM
Comments
Remember, the Feds unequivocally label physicians as Cost Centers – the more there are, the more gets ordered and done – testing, procedures, consultations…and the greater the aggregate expenditure. The same is true of lawyers – the more lawyers, the greater number of civil actions, the greater complexity of regulatory structures…
Posted by: John T. Gregg, MD | Jun 28, 2016 6:51:37 PM
Dick the butcher utters one of the few memorable lines from the Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” His comment meant that to depose the King and establish a communist-style government in England, they should first kill all the lawyers in England. That is because, in England at least in Shakespeare’s time, the lawyers’ bar and the inns of court were a strong mainstay of the monarchy. It is hard to see why American lawyers, who make their money practicing law, would not be inherently establishmentarian regarding our constitutional and legal order of government. Mr. Fontana’s comments make no sense in terms of our government and way of life. More lawyers means more partisans for the establishment. They may be poorer, but they all remember their “Con Law” classes.
Posted by: JCL | Jun 28, 2016 6:30:46 PM
Do the dictators just try to increase the number of law schools, or also the number of other types of higher ed?
Posted by: Dab | Jun 26, 2016 6:45:31 AM
Would it not be much simpler for the dictator to control the judges than to flood the market with lawyers? A few well-placed justices are far easier to handle than hundreds of lawyers and law school administrations.
Posted by: Phil | Jun 25, 2016 3:24:11 PM
I would think that this would tie in pretty well with Bueno de Mesquita et al’s selectorate theory
Posted by: gdanning | Jun 23, 2016 11:45:20 AM