The first chapter of this thesis considers a contractual principal-agent relationship in an unstable environment. The players are uncertain whether repeated interaction is possible. I examine the role that the deliberate choice of an incomplete (non-verifiable and unenforceable) contract plays in signalling stability and trust. In this model, contractors may privately observe shocks that force them to end the relationship after the current period. Complete (verifiable) contracts, which are assumed to be feasible, ensure cooperation in compliance with the contract. With incomplete contracts, the players make themselves vulnerable to exploitation by their partners. But if cooperation occurs notwithstanding, the contractors update their beliefs about each other’s willingness to interact again. When the agent observes that her partner and herself are able to continue the relationship, she undertakes a non-contractible, mutually beneficial investment. The second chapter is based on the theory by Hart and Moore (QJE, 2008) that regards contracts as reference points for feelings of entitlement. Parties’ ex post performance depends on whether they receive what they feel entitled to, which is assumed to be the best possible outcome permitted by the contract. Consequentially, there exists a trade-off between contractual flexibility (agreement on a price interval) and rigidity (agreement on a single price). Hart and Moore do not analyse the role that third party contract enforcement plays for parties’ feelings of entitlement, shading on performance and contract choice. I demonstrate that Hart and Moore’s results rely on a number of assumptions that can be challenged when incorporating litigation into the model. They assume that trade is voluntary but renegotiation is prohibited. I argue that either trade is voluntary but renegotiation is possible or courts compel parties to trade according to the contract. In the former scenario, fixed price contracts may not act as reference points and the parties feel entitled to the best possible outcomes from renegotiation. In the latter scenario, contracts may act as reference points because of the option of contract enforcement. However, potential flexibility incorporated in the contract is lost. The third chapter provides an experimental examination of the effect of contract enforcement on contractors’ reference points for feelings of entitlement. Previous experiments by Fehr, Hart and Zehnder (AER 2011) analyse and support the theory by Hart and Moore (QJE, 2008) that contracts are reference points. Both theory and experiments ignore the role of contract enforcement for contractors’ feelings of entitlement. I replicate and confirm Fehr, Hart and Zehnder’s baseline experiment. I also run an additional treatment in which buyers can offer sellers more or less favourable prices than specified in the contract, whereas sellers can request enforcement of contracts as written. I find that contract enforcement matters, without being invoked, for sellers’ punishment behaviour through feelings of entitlement. Without explicit contract enforcement, flexible contracts (agreement on a price range instead of a single price) leave sellers feel entitled to the best possible price permitted by the contract. However, buyers rarely offer such a price which leads to disappointment and punishment. With the option of contract enforcement, sellers feel entitled to the price which the court would enforce, even if it is equally unfavourable than in the no court treatment. The presence of the court provides an outside validation for which prices are reasonable and thereby limits disappointment and punishment.

This thesis consists of three stand-alone chapters studying theoretical models concerning a range of issues that take place within the context of political delegation: tax enforcement, political selection, electoral campaigning. First chapter studies the problem of a small electorate of workers who cannot influence tax rates but can influence their local politicians to interfere with tax enforcement. It develops a two-candidate Downsian voting model where voters are productivity-heterogenous workers who supply labour to a local firm that can engage in costly tax evasion while facing an exogenously given payroll tax collected at the firm level. Two purely office motivated local politicians compete in a winner-takes-all election by offering fine reductions to take place if the firm gets caught evading. Two results stand out. First, equilibrium tax evasion is (weakly) increasing in the productivity of the median voter as a result of the latter demanding a weaker enforcement regime through more aggressive fine reductions. Second, if politicians were able to propose and commit on tax rates as well, then the enforcement process would be interference-free and the tax level would coincide with the median voter's optimal level. These two results underline the fact that from voters' perspective, influencing enforcement policy is an imperfect substitute for influencing tax policy in achieving an optimal redistribution scheme due to tax evasion being costly. In other words, a lax enforcement pattern in a given polity can be indicative of a political demand arising as an attempt to attain a redistributive second-best when influencing tax policy is not a possibility. Second chapter turns attention to the role and incentives of media in the context of ex ante political selection, i.e. at the electoral participation level. It constructs a signalling model with pure adverse selection where a candidate whose quality is private information decides on whether to challenge an incumbent whose quality is common knowledge given an electorate composed of voters who are solely interested in electing the best politician. Electoral participation is costly and before the election, a benevolent media outlet which is assumed to be acting in the best interest of voters decides on whether to undertake a costly investigation that may or may not reveal challenger's quality and transmit this information to voters. The focus of the chapter is on studying the selection and incentive effects of changes in media's information technology. The setting creates a strategic interaction between challenger entry and media activity, which gives rise to two main results. First, an improvement in media's information technology, whether due to cost reductions or gains in investigative strength always (weakly) improves ex ante selection by increasing minimum challenger quality in equilibrium. Second, while lower information costs always (weakly) make the media more active, an higher media strength may reduce its journalistic activity, especially if it is already strong. The intuition behind this asymmetry is simple. While both types of improvements increase media's expected net benefits from journalism, a boost to its investigative strength also makes the media more threatening for inferior challengers at a given level of journalistic activity. Combining this with the first result implies that the media can afford being more passive without undermining selection if it is sufficiently strong to begin with. In short, a strong media might lead to a relatively passive media, even though the media is "working as intended". Third chapter is about electoral campaigns. More precisely, it is a theoretical investigation into one possible audience-related cause for diverging campaign structures of different candidates competing for the same office: state of political knowledge in an electorate. Electorate is assumed to consist of a continuum of voters heterogenous along two dimensions: policy preferences and political knowledge. The latter is assumed to partition the set of voters into ignorant and informed segments, with the former consisting of voters who are unable to condition their voting decisions on the policy dimension. Political competition takes place within a probabilistic voting setting with two candidates, but instead of costless policy proposals as in a standard probabilistic voting model, it revolves around campaigning. Electoral campaigning is modelled as a limited resource allocation problem between two activities: policy campaigning and valence campaigning. The former permits candidates to relocate from their initial policy positions (reputations or legacies), which are assumed to be at the opposing segments of the policy space (i.e. left and right). The latter allows them to generate universal support via a partisanship effect and can be interpreted as an investment into non-policy campaign content such as impressionistic advertising, recruitment of writers capable of producing emotionally appealing speeches, etc. The chapter has two central results. First, a candidate's resource allocation to valence campaigning increases with the fraction of ignorant voters, ideological (non-policy) heterogeneity of informed voters and proximity of candidate's initial position to the bliss point of the informed pseudo-swing voter. The last one results from decreasing relative marginal returns for politicians from converging to pseudo- swing voter's ideal position. Second, even if candidates are otherwise symmetric, a monotonic association between policy preferences and political knowledge can induce divergence into campaign structures. For instance, if ignorance and policy preferences are positively correlated (e.g. less educated preferring more public good) then the left candidate would conduct a campaign with a heavier valence focus and vice versa. Underlying this result is again the decreasing relative marginal returns argument: a candidate whose initial position is already close to that of the informed pseudo-swing voter would benefit more from a valence oriented campaign. An implication of this is that a party that is known having a relatively more ignorant voter base can end up conducting a much more policy focused campaign compared to a party that is largely associated with politically aware voters.

The thesis examines the enforcement of consumer rights in South Africa, and is set against the backdrop of the underlying principles and theories on the enforcement of consumer protection law. It then analyses the various forms of consumer protection law enforcement mechanisms that were in place prior to the implementation of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, and sets out why there was a need for the enactment of the Consumer Protection Act. The thesis then critically discusses the consumer protection law enforcement mechanisms introduced and/or catered for by the Consumer Protection Act. The in-depth comparative analysis against the consumer protection law enforcement dispensations in both India and the United Kingdom culminates in a critical analysis of the successes and shortcomings of consumer protection law enforcement regime in present-day South Africa; as well as recommendations (in the form of legislative amendments and practical solutions) on how the South African consumer protection enforcement framework can be improved in order to facilitate the realisation of consumer rights. / Mercantile Law / LL. D.

Le maintien de l’ordre est l’une des missions principales des forces de police, l’ordre public étant une condition indispensable à la vie en société. Depuis près d’une dizaine d’année, la légitimité du maintien de l’ordre est en question à cause des mouvements de protestation de grande ampleur pour des raisons politiques comme les printemps arabes, mais aussi au nom d’évolutions économique, sociale et environnementale dans les pays occidentaux. Les opérations de maintien de l’ordre répondent aux débordements des contestations. Elles n’ont pas vocation à réduire la liberté d’expression. Elles encadrent les rassemblements dans l’intérêt des participants et protègent la société contre les actions d’éléments violents. Les principes de nécessité et de proportionnalité reconnus à l’échelle internationale assurent la légitimité des interventions policières. Il arrive qu’une utilisation excessive de la force conduise à mettre en cause la légitimité de la police et plus largement celle de l’état. Si tous les pays sont confrontés périodiquement à des actes regrettables, certains recourent systématiquement à la répression pour réduire les oppositions politiques ou protéger des intérêts personnels. La contestation des débordements des opérations de maintien de l’ordre devient alors un motif de protestation, alimentant un désordre permanent. Le maintien de l’ordre est devenu un enjeu politique qui pose aux forces de police des problèmes juridique et technique complexes. La légitimité du maintien de l’ordre relève des décisions de l’exécutif, mais également de la manière dont ces opérations sont conduites sur le terrain. La légitimité conditionne l’efficacité du maintien de l’ordre / The maintenance of order is one of the main tasks of the police force, public order being a prerequisite for life in society. For nearly ten years, the legitimacy of law enforcement has been in question because of large-scale protest movements for political reasons such as the Arab spring, but also in the name of economic, social and environment developments, in Western countries. The law enforcement operations respond to the overflowing challenges. They are not intended to reduce freedom of expression. They frame the gatherings in the interest of the participants and protect the society against the actions of violent elements. Internationally recognized principles of necessity and proportionality ensure the legitimacy of police interventions. Excessive use of force sometimes leads to questioning the legitimacy of the police and more broadly that of the state. While all countries periodically face regrettable acts, some resort systematically to repression to reduce political opposition or protect personal interests. Contestation of the overflowing of law enforcement operations then becomes a reason for protest, fueling a permanent disorder. The maintenance of order has become a political issue that poses complex legal and technical challenges for police forces. The legitimacy of policing depends on the decisions of the executive, but also on the way these operations are conducted on the field. Legitimacy determines the effectiveness of the maintenance of order

The purpose of this study was to extend current knowledge regarding law enforcement’s perceptions of sex offenders. Law enforcement’s views of sex offenders and the fairness and efficacy of sex offender laws were examined through the utilization of a 60 closed-ended question survey. The survey included questions about sex offender myths, sex offender laws, police officers’ experience in working with sex offenders, specialized training, and demographics. The sample consisted of 74 sworn police officers from a Southeastern state. The results showed that, despite having a mostly empirical based view of sex offenders, sworn police officers were likely to support sex offender laws shown by some scholars to be ineffective in reducing crime and at times counterproductive.

The profession of law enforcement is an inherently stressful job. Although the physical stress of the job is often discussed, the mental health impact on officers is often ignored, resulting in poor mental health and increased risk for suicide. The purpose of the current study was to investigate factors related to the reluctance of law enforcement officers (LEOs) to seeking treatment, as well as to gain an understanding of the prevalence rates of disorders in a law enforcement population. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants (N = 306) across a variety of agencies. Correlation, moderated regression analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in order to model barriers to care among officers. Findings suggest that the presence of psychological disorders was not predictive of willingness to seek treatment. However, perceived stigma did predict lower willingness to seek treatment. General conclusions suggest that increasing unit cohesion and unit support may make a positive impact in decreasing stigma and increasing officers’ willingness to seek treatment.

A sample of recruits attending the East Tennessee Regional Law Enforcement Academy were surveyed about attitudes relating to a variety of topics, including their perceived role as police officers, domestic violence, its victims, perpetrators, and police interactions with domestic violence. The recruits completed the survey during their first week at the academy. The recruits completed the identical survey on the last week of academy training. No significant change in attitudes were found following the completion of the Regional Law Enforcement Academy training program. Conclusively, the results of this study show that the training provided at the East Tennessee Regional Law Enforcement Academy does not significantly change the attitudes and perceptions of the recruits toward domestic violence.

Team norms are one of the most frequently used explanations of how teams as a collective entity can influence individual member’s behaviors (Hackman & Walton, 1986; Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991; Feldman, 1984). Despite such importance, current theoretical and empirical development of team norms is relatively inadequate. In this dissertation, I view norm strength and norm enforcement as two central pillars of team norms, and specifically examine team norm enforcement from a social network perspective. I first develop a typology based on the existing literature and specify the behavior content of three types of norm enforcement mechanisms: sanction, recognition and learning. Second, I examine the impact of the structural and configural properties on team performance. This model was tested on 799 employees nested in 101 work teams from China. Results from the data analysis have offered partial support that the structural characteristics of norm enforcement network had impacts on team performance above and beyond norm strength.

The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training program is a community partnership that provides education, understanding, interventions, relationships, and protection for responding officers, individuals in crisis and the community. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of CIT training amongst law enforcement officers in reducing stigmatizing attitudes and opinions on mental illnesses. The study uses a dependent means t-test to test the study participant’s attitudes and opinions on mental illnesses using a pre/post-test survey. A modified version of the Attitudes to Severe Mental Illness Scale was used to measure attitudes, beliefs, and opinions of mental illness. This modified version was developed based on CIT course material. The ultimate goal of this study was to gain insight within the law enforcement community as to whether or not CIT training is raising awareness on the issue of mental health. Findings from this study suggest that after participation, those in the CIT training reported lower levels of non-stigmatizing opinions and attitudes in two of the four factors being analyzed.

Prior research shows that female police officers experience more incidents of harassment than male police officers, and these experiences of harassment have been shown to have negative effects on their mental and physical health, retention, and job satisfaction. The current study examined the experiences of harassment of 20 female police officers from agencies around Southern California. A survey interview was used, and it was found that none of the women had experienced quid pro quo harassment, but every woman recalled experiencing environmental harassment at some point throughout their career. Hostility towards women was more commonly experienced than harassment which was sexual in nature. Several themes arose from responses to open-ended questions. Female police officers reported that: gender related comments/jokes are not “unwanted”; that they participate in the jokes; gender related jokes are part of the policing culture; and that female officers are negatively targeted because of their sex. Some women stated they did not want to report the harassment and risk ruining their career.