Evolutionary Impulses In Law

Feler Bose

Advisor: .

Enterprise Hall, 318
October 30, 2007, 08:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation is composed of three different essays. Each essay discusses how laws change over time. The first essay focuses on marriage in the United States. It starts with the Beckerian model and then develops the relational contract model to analyze the role religion plays in marriage. The second essay focuses on abortion law and how it had changed over the centuries in the United States. A model of social entrepreneurship is developed and incorporated with other theories from Public Choice. From this, one can understand social movements from the left and the right and how they work differently. The final essay is on the Indian constitution and how it has evolved in the area of civil and economic rights. Two Public Choice models (Congleton Model and Tsebelis Model) are used to analyze the evolution of the Indian constitution. In India, civil rights has been strengthened but economic rights has been weakened.