<i>Can Laws Send the Right Message</i> : Understanding the Assumptions and Costs Associated with Using Legal Expression as a Tool for Social Change

Abstract Laws send a message – or so we assume. Law and economics scholars argue that it may do so through mere expression. Since this requires no active enforcement, legal expression has become a popular policy tool. This article questions both the strength of legal expression for social change as well as its costlessness by focusing on the institutional conditions essential for legal expression to work. First, legal expression requires that people have good legal knowledge. At least, their legal knowledge should be better than their social knowledge. Second, individuals must be interested in the attitudes of a ‘homogenized whole’ of which law is a credible source of information. As the article highlights, neither of these two conditions exist in most contexts. As importantly, the article explains how over-utilizing legal expression in such ill-suited contexts further undermines the power of future laws in creating change, with or without enforcement.