Changes in government litigation during the past fifty years are treated as an indicator of changes in policymaking priorities of various national administrations during that period. Policies of direct government intervention (enforcement) are distinguished from policies of indirect intervention (regulation). They are measured here by U.S. plaintiff and U.S. defendant litigation trends in federal district and appeals courts from 1937 to 1986. Trends in administrative appeals from regulatory agencies, boards, and commissions to the appeals courts are used to estimate the intensity of regulatory activity. There is some evidence of systematic variation in government litigation and administrative appeals due to an “administration” effect, but there are also secular tendencies suggesting a more general “government” effect cutting across various administrations. The implications of the analysis for the theory of the state are discussed.

Using a data base of 28,000 trial cases decided in four Arizona trial courts between 1912 and 1951, this article examines the relationships between crises, litigation, and policy change. After comparing and contrasting consensus and conflict perspectives on trial court litigation, an interrupted time series design is used to test three propositions derived from the conflict perspective. These propositions concern the impact of crises, namely, world wars and depressions, on different types of litigation; the victory patterns of different types of disputants; the ability of losing litigants to obtain policy relief; and the impact of policy change on varying disputants and litigants. The results suggest the utility of further attempts to explore litigation from an economic and political conflict perspective.

The local political economy links courts to society. A consideration of this linkage helps explain why so few of New York City's nineteenth-century homicides resulted in punishment. Their punishment requiring both state and local governments' cooperation and expenditures, high homicide rates manifested fiscal contradictions imposed by local voters, who desired high service but low taxes. Thus trials for homicides did not index homicides but were complex, indirect outcomes of fiscal, political, and soical processes.

This article describes economic research on models of legal disputes. Concepts such as rational choice and static equilibrium are often used inaccurately in the noneconomic research presented in this issue. This article critiques the longitudinal studies, illustrating a number of problems of conceptualization and data analysis. Finally, the authors consider normative models of dispute resolution and the evolution and effects of judge-made law.

Civil litigation rates in the European and Latin American countries examined in this article rose during the 1970s. It is unlikely, however, that this growth was primarily caused by socioeconomic development. First, per capita economic growth slowed during the 1970s compared to the earlier postwar period. Second, litigation rates between 1945 and 1970 were either flat or cyclical, reacting to forces independent of socioeconomic development. Third, rates of filing civil cases in the 1980s seem again to be falling. By investigating regional litigation rates within a country, nevertheless, it appears that the level of socioeconomic development does influence the total number of disputes generated or the citizenry's propensity to use formal courts. Further progress in understanding the multiple factors affecting civil litigation trends will depend on a sophisticated local environment model and further intracountry studies.

Drawing on the experience of the European working group for the comparative study of litigation patterns, the author assesses the possibilities and limits of longitudinal international comparisons. The major challenge is ensuring that what is compared is comparable. Overall national litigation data are not comparable as such; official statistics raise more questions than they answer. The problems lie in the (socio)legal categories used in various countries, consistency of registration over time, and differences in legal procedures. The author suggests that a more fruitful line of inquiry begins with sociolegal categories of problems (e.g., housing, debt) and searches for litigation patterns. Thus disaggregating litigation data has the additional advantage of allowing the use of problem-specific baselines, which makes for greater comparability of data.