MOBILE – Mobility Law Open Lab with Thomas Holzhausen

Pathways to Legal Proficiency: Exploring Channels of Legal Knowledge Acquisition and its Implications for German Asylum Law

Guest presenter: Thomas Holzhausen is a Research Fellow IMPRS at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Presentation: Legal compliance is essential for governing daily life. For that reason, it comes as no surprise that compliance has been heavily studied in law, economics, and psychology, with theories ranging from utility-driven motives to concepts of legitimacy. However, these theories assume an informed individual. Less light has been shed on the learning process of the law and its subsequent changes, even though knowledge of the statutes is vital for compliance. Knowledge of the law is a natural puzzle since only a minority of citizens study or work with the law on a regular basis. However, anecdotal evidence and the general functioning of society indicate that far more people know what they are allowed to do. Based on psychological learning theories, we first draw a picture of the individual learning process of the law.

Secondly, the law is not inert but a living body, constantly adapting to the challenges of a changing social and natural environment. Therefore, we intend to enrich the aforementioned theoretical propositions through empirical evidence regarding legislative change. In line with psychological learning theory, our goal is to examine how individuals' speed of adapting to legal change varies depending on information channels and the policy issues addressed. Since we expect routine compliance with the law, we propose an experimental design where participants have to solve two-dimensional mazes repeatedly. We anticipate a quicker response when policy issues impact individuals directly, and information is readily available, frequent, and cheap.

This leads to a variety of consequences for the legislative process in general as well as distinct legal areas. Few other legal disciplines have been subject to more scientific and public scrutiny than asylum law. When moving across borders, one has to learn a variety of new legal statutes, which can be a struggle for many. For example, 54.9% of all property and counterfeiting offenses committed by immigrants are transportation frauds, which is a criminal offense in Germany, contrary to most other legislations. We argue that the learning process needed to adjust to the legislative prerequisites of a new country is hindered by current asylum legislation, such as the residency requirement (§ 56 German Asylum Act), centralized reception facilities (§ 47 German Asylum Act), and a temporary work ban (§ 61 German Asylum Act).

Time: 23 May 2024 10:00-11:15

Place: MOBILE – 6B-2-22 Southern Campus + ONLINE

Online participation

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