Law[1] is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible.[2] It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people.

The conditions in the jails in Pakistan are deplorable; most of the prisons are more than 100 years old. Credit: Anees Jillani.

Dominant group

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  • Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
  • Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
  • Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
  • Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
  • Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
  • Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  • Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
  • Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
  • Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
  • Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
  • Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
  • Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
  • Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
  • Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
  • Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  • Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
  • Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
  • Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
  • Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
  • Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
  • Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  • Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.

Laws

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"The dominant group whose values are expressed in the law is only one of many groups which are integrated in the moral and political fabric of the community."[3]

"Implicit in such references is a silent "we" which carries the appearance of objectivity but actually presumes a dominant group perspective."[4]

Differences

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"If a white woman also is a welfare mother, can we consider her legitimately placed with the dominant group in society merely because she shares their skin color?"[5]

Law professors

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"Unfortunately, performance is often hampered by negative feelings, which would be true for any group that had been saddled with centuries of oppression by the dominant group."[6]

"Because the token is highly visible, she bears more performance pressure than members of the dominant group.8 The dynamics created by a skewed group context are exacerbated in the case of the African American female law professor."[7]

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"[I]nterest group pluralism replaced legal pluralism as the dominant group theory."[8]

Dominances

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"As the dominant group, it is in men's best interest to continue to assign the role of sole caretaker to women because this role limits women's ability to be the primary breadwinner, and thereby forces them to remain less powerful than men."[9]

Rights

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"It is the feeling on the part of the dominant group of being entitled to either exclusive or prior rights in many important areas of life."[10]

Hypotheses

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  1. A dominant group makes the laws to maintain their dominance.

See also

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References

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  1. From Old English lagu; legal comes from Latin legalis, from lex "law", "statute" (Law, Online Etymology Dictionary; Legal, Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)
  2. Robertson, Crimes against humanity, 90; see "analytical jurisprudence" for extensive debate on what law is; in The Concept of Law Hart argued law is a "system of rules" (Campbell, The Contribution of Legal Studies, 184); Austin said law was "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction" (Bix, John Austin); Dworkin describes law as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice (Dworkin, Law's Empire, 410); and Raz argues law is an "authority" to mediate people's interests (Raz, The Authority of Law, 3–36).
  3. RC Fuller (1942). "Morals and the criminal law". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1136815. Retrieved 2012-04-26. 
  4. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (May 1988). "Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law". Harvard Law Review 101 (7): 1331-87. doi:10.2307/1341398. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1341398?uid=3739552&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101573479687. Retrieved 2012-12-17. 
  5. Martha L. Fineman (1990). "Challenging Law, Establishing Differences: The Future of Feminist Legal Scholarship". Florida Law Review 42 (11): 25-43. http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/uflr42&section=11. Retrieved 2012-04-26. 
  6. Roy L. Brooks (1985). "Life after tenure: Can minority law professors avoid the Clyde Ferguson syndrome". USF Law Review 20 (28): 419. http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/usflr20&section=28. Retrieved 2012-04-26. 
  7. Linda S. Greene (1990). "Tokens, Role Models, and Pedagogical Politics: Lamentations of an African American Female Law Professor". Berkeley Women's Law Journal 6: 81. http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/berkwolj6&section=12. Retrieved 2012-12-17. 
  8. Dalia Tsuk (January 2005). "From Pluralism to Individualism: Berle and Means and 20th-Century American Legal Thought". Law & Social Inquiry 30 (1): 179-225. doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.2005.tb00349.x. 
  9. Hillary Hunt Holmes (2003). "Legitimizing Male Dominance: Gendering the Nongendered Equal Protection Doctrine A Critique of Judith Baer's Our Lives Before the Law". UCLA Women's LJ. https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=12+UCLA+Women%27s+L.J.+291&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=354683b386b68c7bac9aa1fcc4329e6a. Retrieved 2012-02-22. 
  10. Herbert Blumer (Spring 1958). "Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position". Pacific Sociological Review 1 (1): 3-7. doi:10.2307/1388607. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1388607. Retrieved 2012-12-17. 
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