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Authors: Eli Baltzersen, Francesca Jensenius, and Øyvind Søraas Skorge
Abstract: Several countries have in recent years moved from a coercion-based to a consent-based legal definition of rape. To what extent are citizens’ moral attitudes toward sexual consent affected by these legal changes? Building on expressive-law theory, we expect a move to consent-based rape legislation to shift moral attitudes. This effect, we argue, is likely to be moderated both by citizens’ proximity to the issue at hand and by their relationship to the state. We test our hypotheses experimentally in the context of Norway, where a proposal was recently made to include consent in the current coercion-based legal framework. Providing information treatments about both current and proposed legislation to a representative sample of the Norwegian population, as well as large samples of elite respondents (civil servants and elected representatives), allows us to test the expressive power of the law while holding constant the level of information about the law.
