Why People Obey the Law

People obey the law if they believe it's legitimate, not because they fear punishment, this is the startling conclusion of this study. This book suggests that lawmakers would do much better to make legal systems worthy of respect than to instil fear. It finds that people obey law primarily because they believe in respecting legitimate authority.

"Tyler's book posits an alternative model of legal compliance--one that focuses upon ways of obtaining public consent for and cooperation with particular regulatory regimes.... Though written from the perspective of the discipline of social psychology, there are lessons here for everybody involved or interested in legal regulation, governance or, indeed, community relations."---Andrew Goldsmith, Law Society Journal

Auteur

Tom R. Tyler With a new afterword by the author