Systematic Study of Group-Based Legal Mobilization

University Of Kansas Center For Research Inc, Lawrence KS

Investigators

Abstract

Litigation campaigns commonly shape public discussion and public policy on topics ranging from hot-button social issues to technical matters of regulatory policy. How do campaign organizers decide what to claim, when, and where? How do these decisions interact with official decisions and grassroots mobilization? Under these influences, how do litigation campaigns evolve and sometimes grow and influence public discussion and public policy? Previous studies have commonly focused on key cases in prominent courts or how legal claims influence grassroots mobilization. This study will expand the focus to include every formal claim made by a campaign in every forum, and then will examine how the relative success of these varying claims in different forums shapes the course of the campaign over time. The study has broad implications for understanding law's contribution to, and limits on, public policy. The broader impact also includes training and education of graduate and undergraduate students. The campaign to be studied is an effort by environmental groups since 2003 to block construction of coal-fired power plants nationwide. As part of this effort, these groups have pursued a wide variety of legal claims in many types of forums, from local courts and planning commissions to the EPA's administrative tribunals and federal appellate courts. The research will compile data on all claims made by the campaign in all forums nationwide over the course of the campaign, and will then combine these data with publicly-available data on relevant aspects of the political context at the state and national levels. The study will be the first comprehensive analysis of a litigation campaign over time and across both political and legal forums in all relevant jurisdictions. It is also the first to bring together theoretical insights from three literatures: studies of the American state, group-based legal mobilization, and resource mobilization, topics commonly studied separately, and the first to use a data-compilation method, the catalog of contentious events, adapted from studies of social movements.