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This dissertation examines inspector discretion and industry compliance in the street-level implementation of building codes. In particular, this study examines the effects that agency-level, individual-level, and environmental variables have on the choice of inspectors to exercise discretion. Unique to this study is the examination of policy congruence between building departments and street-level inspectors as a predictor of industry compliance with regulatory policy. In addition, the various effects of building department enforcement philosophies, departmental capacity for enforced compliance, and environmental variables are considered. The findings indicate that regulatory policy implementation and impact are complex phenomena. There is no single, best predictor for determining what influences inspector behavior and industry compliance. Rather, this study shows that it is a multiplicity of factors, in concert, that shape regulatory outputs and outcomes. From this dissertation we can learn lessons that can be applied to other policy areas to create a better understanding of inspector discretion, improve industry compliance with regulations, and achieve more effective street-level implementation and understanding of policy impact.

published_or_final_version / Law / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (doctoral)--Martin Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

In this thesis I argue that contemporary legal philosophy provides an inadequate analysis of central indeterminacies in law. I focus on "judicial discretion" as central to current analysis. Positivists, such as H.L.A. Hart, argue that it is the contingencies of human society that give rise to uncertainty in the application of law. Therefore, they believe that judges must be given discretionary powers. Ronald Dworkin, an American philosopher, believes that judges should not be given such powers. For him, it is the positivists' conception of law that is amiss. He believes that once the institutions of law are correctly appraised, the need for judicial discretion will be seen as a conceptual fault arising from a positivist analysis. In order to provide a critical framework in which to assess this debate, I outline the Causal Theory of Law developed by Professors S.C. Coval and J.C. Smith. If the attention given the concept of judicial discretion represents a concern with subjective elements in law, then the attention given the concept of a rule represents a concern with objective elements in law. In a tentative way, one might interpret the question at issue as being: "Is law ultimately an affair of reason or will?" Other questions follow: "Is this a false dichotomy?" "Must law be a combination of both authority and power, rational argument and official fiat?" I address these questions indirectly through an examination of Ronald Dworkin's legal philosophy. I find that Dworkin fails to understand the nature and complexity of the problems that he confronts. He believes that legal systems can be designed so that authority and power, legitimacy and efficacy never compromise each other. He does this, however, by giving precedence authority. The causal Theory interprets such resolutions as "disjunctive". Dworkin's resolution betrays his inability to appreciate the complexity of the problem. He also obscures the nature of the problem by his "rights thesis", which interprets the issue involved as primarily a question of normative political theory. However, his conception of normativeness is ambiguous and requires analysis. I argue, against Dworkin, first, that indeterminacy in law is a problem for institutional design, and second, that to argue that this design problem is normative is to take a view that is overly narrow and ultimately misleading. I conclude that those involved in the philosophical debate surrounding indeterminacy in law erroneously think that the solution will take a disjunctive form: One side or the other, of the antinomy between reason and fiat in law must be rejected. In line with the Causal Theory, I argue that once this problem is seen as one of institutional design, the problem takes on an entirely new shape. It becomes one of management and experiment. The function of the law is to help manage the political affairs of society, and also to provide opportunities for individual and group initiatives. Man is limited in his experience and knowledge. In the design of legal institutions man's abilities are not infinite; he can hardly be expected to foresee all eventualities. But such indeterminacy remains a matter of degree, relative to man's knowledge and his ability to use it. The legal enterprise, as does the scientific, can proceed without a completely worked out set of agreements, or system of beliefs. What is essential is an understanding among the participants as to how such sets will be developed. The core remains empirical. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

De même que Maurice Blanchot observait que le quotidien, « c’est ce qu’il y a de plus difficile à découvrir », Quentin Jouret constate qu’il ne cesse de changer d’apparence et échappe à notre désir de maîtrise. Le problème n’est dès lors pas tant de définir le quotidien, mais plutôt de voir comment « la discrétion serait la manière dont le quotidien change imperceptiblement ». De façon plus pratique, la discrétion devient un moyen d’apprendre à mieux voir le monde qui nous entoure, à en saisir les modulations infimes. Pour le dessinateur comme pour le photographe, il s’agira d’être attentif aux occasions qui se présentent, l’espace d’un bref instant. Tout comme Roland Barthes ambitionnait, autour du terme de « diaphrologie », de construire une science des nuances, Quentin Jouret appelle tour à tour les notions de neutre chez Roland Barthes, de dettaglio chez Daniel Arasse, de fadeur chez François Julien, d’inframince chez Marcel Duchamp ou encore d’infraordinaire chez Georges Pérec. Le mémoire consiste en un volume de 590 pages, impression recto verso, dont la particularité est d’intercaler entre chaque page un feuillet moins large, non folioté, réservé à la reproduction des images de l’auteur et dans une moindre mesure celles des œuvres des artistes cités en référence. Ce travail entend mettre en avant le primat de l’expérience artistique dans la recherche en arts plastiques. / As Maurice Blanchot observed that daily, "is what is most difficult to find," Jouret Quentin finds that keeps changing appearance and beyond our control desire. The problem is therefore not so much to define the everyday, but rather to see how "the discretion is how the daily exchange imperceptibly." More practically, discretion is a way to learn how to see the world around us, to grasp the tiny modulations. For the artist as for the photographer, this will be attentive to opportunities that arise, just for a brief moment. As Roland Barthes aspired around the term "diaphrologie" to build a science of nuances, Quentin Jouret called alternately the neutral concepts Roland Barthes, to dettaglio at Daniel Arasse of blandness in François Julien, of inframince with Marcel Duchamp or to infraordinaire at Georges Perec. The memory consists of a volume of 590 pages, duplex printing, whose characteristic is to insert between each page a narrower slip, non folioté, reserved for the reproduction of images of the author and to a lesser extent those works referenced artists. This work intends to emphasize the primacy of artistic experience in research in the visual arts.

Thesis (S.J.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: David Dyzenhaus. Includes bibliographical rererences.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-213).

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 116-120).