Coercion to Compromise: Plea Bargaining, the Courts and the Making of Political Authority Book

Plea Bargaining: A Distinctively American Practice     3
The Paradox of Plea Bargaining     5
Beginnings in Partisan Contest and Political Stabilization     7
Origins of Plea Bargaining: Controversial Beginnings     8
Constitutive Structural Change and Human Agency     15
Law as "Modality of Rule": The Making of Political Authority     16
Formation of a Limited State of Courts and Parties     20
State before Nation: Articulating a Relational Political Identity     24
Forging Citizens in the Context of an Extended Franchise     25
Comparatively Informed Historical Analysis     28
Liberty and the Republican Citizen: Rise of the Rule of Law     37
Republicanism in the Historical Imagination     38
Contours of Republican Ideology     41
Citizenship in the Republic     45
Republicanism in the Language of Labor     45
"Popular Sovereignty" and the "Rule of Law"     48
The Rise of Liberalism     49
Law, Social Order, and the State in Social Theory     53
Law and Political Power: A Macrosocial Approach     53
Law and the Nature, Capacities, and Limits of the State     55
Law and Social Order in Historical Sociology     56
The Autonomy of the State and Popular Consent     60
Law and State Formation: Challenge to "Liberal Myth"     62
Early Sociological Perspectives on Law: Weber and Marx     65
Statist, Conflict, and Contingent Theoretical Traditions of the State Governance and Law     70
Specific Existing Theories about State and Law in Society     77
Continuity and Change: A Generative Sociology     89
Contours of Early Plea Bargaining: Patterns of Plea and Concessions     91
The Emergence of Plea Bargaining     93
Popularization of Guilty Pleas     94
Multiplicity of the Forms of Concessions     102
Concessions in the Magnitude of Sentences     103
Type of Sentence Imposed     112
Chances of Acquittal     118
Other Concessions     119
Composite Analysis of the Building Blocks of Bargaining     119
Does Caseload Pressure Play a Part?     121
Pleas and Concessions: The Institutionalization Process     125
Responses to Marx and Weber: Hypothetical Explanations     126
Episodic Leniency in Britain and America     131
Social Conflict and Popular Rule: Recrafting Leniency     132
The Cultural Repertoire of Leniency in the Common Law      133
Religious Practice of Admonition: A Cultural Template     140
Stirrings of Direct Compromise in the Civil Sphere     143
Occasional Cases of Direct Compromise in Criminal Courts     143
The Emergence of Plea Bargaining: Improvization in Law     147
Timing of Crisis: Convergence of Forces and Innovation     148
Changing Class Structure and Challenge to Elite Control     150
Extension of the Franchise and Movements for Social Reform     163
Law and Social Policy in Sentencing     169
Lawyering in an Era of Popular Politics     171
Popular Challenge to the Common Law     174
Contours of the State     178
The Micropolitics of Consent     183
Plea Bargaining and Popular Consent     187
Reconsolidating Political Power in an Age of Popular Politics: Whig Reform and Social Reproduction     189
Second Great Awakening and Ideological Transition     191
Market Revolution and Fears of Disorder     198
Market Culture and Victorian Reconstruction of Punishment     202
Reconsolidation of Elite Power and the Whig Ascendancy     207
Sequencing and Convergence of Causal Forces     217
Political Stabilization and Consent: Reform and Reproduction     220
"Courts and Parties": A Weak Administrative State     222
Bench, Bar, and the Legacy of Post-Revolutionary Federalism     225
Courts and Policy: Control through Traditional Hierarchies     234
Social Class and the Elections of 1836: Collapse of the Anti-Masonic Party     237
Popular Skepticism: A Language of Protest     239
Recrafting the Tradition of Episodic Leniency     241
Transformation of Community and Ambivalent Deference     244
The Transformation of Plea Bargaining: Control through Middle Level Institutions and Social Welfare     247
Social Class and Ethnicity as Bases of Conflict     250
An Incongruous Democratic Alliance: Pragmatic Patricians and the Irish Working Class     251
The Faces of Ethnic Status Conflict: Struggle between City and State     253
Stewards of the Transfer of Power: Politics of the Yankee-Irish Democratic Alliance     255
Eclipse of Yankee Leadership: From Municipal Socialism to Progressive Reform     261
Coalition Building and the Rise of Patronage Politics     266
Ethnic Politics and the Socializing Role of Middle-Level Institutions     268
The Courts, Sentencing Policy, and the Mayoral Elections     269
Changing Patterns of Concessions and Their Social Incidence     270
The Struggle for Control of Socializing Institutions     280
The Making of Post-Revolutionary Political Authority     285
Reestablishing Authority: A "Rule of Law"     287
Role of the Judiciary: Implementation of "Law Rule"     288
Forms of Authority: Rational-Legal and Traditional     289
Political Equality and Material Inequality: Threat to Property     291
"Americanization" and Homogeneity: Imbuing Industry     293
Immigrant Diversity and Social Disorder     296
Faction and Disaffiliation: Marginals and the Workingmen's Movement     297
Theorizing State Power: Authority, Legitimation, and Consent     298
The Making of Democratic Political Authority     299
"Symbolic Suretyship": Socially Embedded Free Choice     301
Hierarchy Resurgent: Home, Workplace, and Social Control     303
Post-Revolutionary Authority: Modern and Traditional Elements     304
Freedom and the Web of Membership: Facets of Citizenship     305
Markets and Hierarchies: Liberty, Political Subject, and Citizenship     307
Nonresidential Laborers and Community Jurisdiction     309
Property in the Work of Laborers     312
Contractarian Individualism and Republicanism: Autonomous Subjects     314
Dualistic Liberty: Formally Free Labor and Constrained Choice     315
Similarities between Laborers and Criminal Defendants     317
State before Nation: Ethnic Pluralism and National Identity     318
Citizenship as Modern Status Contract     319
Mixed Model of Citizenship: Civic Corporatism     320
Democratic Skepticism and the Oppositional Discourse of Liberalism     321
Authority and Hegemony     322
Conclusion     325
Notes     329
Bibliography     369
Index     405