Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Does Law Matter in Social Movements?

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

In democratic settings, members of minority groups have recourse to a variety of political tools (for example, lobbying, making campaign contributions) to pursue what they see as their fundamental rights and liberties. Not only do they have numerous tools at their disposal, they have many potential points of entry into the political system (including the legislative, judicial, and executive arenas at both the national and sub-national level). Much less is known, however, about rights mobilization in non-democratic settings. The purpose of this dissertation research, to be conducted by Lynette Chua under the supervision of Dr. Kristin Luker, is to understand why and how members of minority groups mobilize to pursue what they see as their rights in non-democratic settings. There are two central questions motivating this study. The first is how activists make sense of rights and ultimately decide to become activists. The second is how activists understand rights and how that understanding informs their activities and ideas of success. The research will be conducted in Singapore, an Asian country that resembles a Western democracy on paper but functions differently in substantial ways in practice. The researcher will conduct approximately 90 in-depth interviews with gay activists in Singapore. She will also systematically analyze documents such as activists' writings and state policies and laws. This study will refine scholarly understanding about the place of rights in less-than-democratic countries and, in the process, illuminate rights mobilization more generally. The findings will advance knowledge regarding the connection between rights and collective action and the connection between individual actions, especially acts of resistance, and collective action with regard to rights.