Ron Levi, University of Toronto
Professor of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Sociology; Distinguished Professor of Global Justice.

315 Bloor Street West, Room 213

Tel.: 416.978.2486
Email: ron.levi@utoronto.ca

url: http://individual.utoronto.ca/ronlevi/

Ron Levi is Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Department of Sociology, and is Distinguished Professor of Global Justice. He holds a courtesy cross-appointment to the Faculty of Law, and is a Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Ron works at the intersection of politics and culture and the sociology of law and justice. He studies hopes, claims, ideas, and competitions about legality and justice, generally during turbulent, disrupted, violent, or miserable times. He is actively working on four projects: (1) a comparative historical study of reactions to police violence during the 1950s-1960s; (2) research with recently arrested individuals on their hopes for police reform; (3) expertise, morality, and bureaucracy in the fields of international human rights and international criminal law; and (4) collaborative research on hate and counter-hate speech.
 
In recent years, Ron has taught courses on events and turbulent times; police violence in global affairs; the sociology of atrocities; law, politics and globalization; justice measurement; and the sociology of law.

Ron is currently Chair for the Sociology of Law section of the American Sociological Association, and earlier served as Secretary of the Law and Society Association. He was made Chevalier in l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Government, is a recipient of the Ludwik and Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize, and has served as Scholar-in-Residence for Holocaust Education Week. In 2022, he received the Global Educator Award from the University of Toronto.

Other info

Global Justice Lab

Selected publications

Levi, Ron, Sophie Marois and Sara Dezalay. 2024. "Lawyers, Archivists, and the Turn to Transparency in the French State." AJIL Unbound 118:30-35.

Levi, Ron, Traci Burch and Robert Nelson. 2023. "Streets, Suites, and States: John Hagan’s Contributions to the Study of Law, Power, and Inequality." Law & Social Inquiry 48:1109-1116.

Sendroiu, Ioana and Ron Levi. 2023. “World Society Corridors: Partnership Patterns in the Spread of Human Rights.”  Social Forces 102:377-401.

Stein, Janice Gross and Ron Levi. 2023. “Testing Deterrence by Denial: Experimental Results from Criminology.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 46:101-121.

Sendroiu, Ioana, Ron Levi and John Hagan. 2022. “Legal Cynicism and System Avoidance: Roma Marginality in Central and Eastern Europe.” Social Forces 101:281-308.

Upenieks, Laura, Ioana Sendroiu, Ron Levi and John Hagan. 2022. “Beliefs about Legality and Benefits for Mental Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 63:266-282.

Levi, Ron, Ronit Dinovitzer and Wendy Wong. 2022. “Strategic Philanthropy and International Strategies: The Ford Foundation and Investments in Law Schools and Legal Education.” Pp. 79-122 in B. Garth and G. Shaffer, eds., The Globalization of Legal Education. New York: Oxford University Press.

Levi, Ron, Holly Campeau and Todd Foglesong. 2022. “Recognition Gaps and Economies of Worth in Police Encounters.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 10:87-109.

Campeau, Holly, Ron Levi and Todd Foglesong. 2021. “Policing, Recognition, and the Bind of Legal Cynicism.” Social Problems 68:658-674.

Levi, Ron, Ioana Sendroiu and John Hagan. 2020. “America First Populism, Social Volatility, and Self-Reported Arrests.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117:26703-26709.

Levi, Ron and Ioana Sendroiu. 2020. “Performance, Power, and Transnational Legal Ordering:  Addressing Sexual Violence as a Human Rights Concern.” Pp. 333-368 in G. Shaffer and E. Aaronson, eds., The Transnational Legal Ordering of Criminal Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Levi, Ron and Ioana Sendroiu. 2019. “Moral Claims and Redress after Atrocity: Economies of Worth across Political Cultures in the Holocaust Swiss Banks Litigation.” Poetics 73:45-60.

Campeau, Holly and Ron Levi. 2019. “Neoliberal Legality as Dual Process: Embeddedness, Courts and Crime Prevention in the United States.” British Journal of Criminology 59: 334–353.

Levi, Ron, Sara Dezalay and Michael Amiraslani. 2016. “Prosecutorial Practice and Strategic Statements: Justifying International Prosecutions from the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg through to the International Criminal Court.” Comparativ: Journal for Global History and Comparative Studies 26:58-73.

Levi, Ron, John Hagan and Sara Dezalay. 2016. “International Courts in Atypical Political Environments: The Interplay of Prosecutorial Strategy, Evidence, and Court Authority in International Criminal Law.” Law and Contemporary Problems 79:289-314.

Research areas
Comparative Law
Critical Legal Theory
International Law
Law and Globalization

Publications

All Publications
Twitter
@ronleviutoronto