Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Early EEOC, Legal Mobilization, and the New Administrative State

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

General Summary This project analyzes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) early history in order to advance understanding of legal mobilization and state capacity. The study examines the EEOC's ability to implement its objectives without formal authority and the role of non-state actors in the implementation of employment discrimination law, which would in turn inform how understaffed government agencies can successfully shape legal and political reform and how legal mobilization can be a tool of state capacity building. The PI does this through a multi-site comparative design that creates the first district court-level database of early EEOC litigation efforts. Technical Summary The PI analyzes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) early history in order to advance understanding of legal mobilization and state capacity. The PI contributes to three sets of scholarly literature: (1) Administrative Law and State Capacity; (2) Legal Mobilization; and (3) Labor Law, Politics and the History of the EEOC. The study examines the EEOC's ability to implement its objectives without formal authority and the role of non-state actors in the implementation of employment discrimination law, which would in turn inform how understaffed government agencies can successfully shape legal and political reform and how legal mobilization can be a tool of state capacity building. The PI does this through a multi-site comparative design that creates the first district court-level database of early EEOC litigation efforts. The data collection process involves formal interviews, archival research, and survey research.