Research Papers

Independent research exploring institutional legitimacy, professional and civilian judgment, and public accountability.

The Civic Gaze: Civilian Procedural Socialization and Moral Distance in Public Judgments of State Coercion

Luis Alicea · Independent Researcher · September 2026 · 45 pages

This theory-building paper asks how civilians learn to judge coercive state action. It develops the concept of civilian procedural socialization through three mechanisms: institutional categorization, procedural moralization, and moral-attention reallocation. The framework considers policing, immigration enforcement, and civic education while recognizing that public judgment can resist and revise official narratives.

The paper proposes testable propositions and a research agenda; it does not claim to report an original causal experiment.

When Procedural Legitimacy Becomes Moral Distance: How Professional Socialization Shapes Use-of-Force Debates

Luis Alicea · Independent Researcher · Posted March 12, 2026 · Revised March 31, 2026 · 33 pages

This analytical essay examines why law-enforcement professionals and civilian observers can reach conflicting judgments about use-of-force incidents. It distinguishes the demands of real-time operational decisions from those of post-incident evaluation and contrasts procedural legitimacy with moral proximity: attention to evidence, sequence, proportionality, and human consequences.

It argues that effective accountability requires institutional processes to remain open to external scrutiny and evidentiary revision, without discounting the complexities of operational decisions.

Both papers are available through SSRN. Distribution on SSRN does not by itself establish journal peer review.