The Struggle for Control: A Study of Law, Disputes, and Deviance

This book offers a study of deviance and dispute management in a comparative perspective. Conventional wisdom and professional knowledge assume a clear line between the study of disputes and deviance. The authors provide the basic steps for integrating the study of disputes with research on the sociology of law and deviance. They examine the conditions crucial to dispute analysis: the nature of social and political relationships, informal and formal social control, cost, time, and access to dispute forums.

Pat Lauderdale is Professor of Justice and Adjunct Professor of Law at Arizona State University. Michael Cruit is Acting Director of Herbert Blumer Institute, Costa Rica.