On the Social Construction of Legal Grievances: Evidence From Colombia and South Africa

Abstract

Leveraging comparisons within and across cases, this article investigates legal mobilization for social rights in Colombia and South Africa. This kind of rights contestation represents a new phenomenon, in which both ordinary citizens and judicial actors have come to view problems related to access to health care, housing, education, and social security through the lens of the law. Research on legal mobilization has tended toward one-sided examinations of this complex phenomenon, focusing primarily on either legal claims-making or judicial decision-making, and neglecting to fully theorize the relationship between the two. Drawing on an analysis of rights claims and 178 interviews, this article aims to correct these imbalances. In doing so, it offers a generalizable model that accounts for the social construction of legal grievances and the development of judicial receptivity to particular kinds of claims, and explains both the emergence and continuation of legal mobilization for social rights.

Closing Open Government: Grassroots Policy Conversion of China’s Open Government Information Regulation and Its Aftermath

“…Indeed, recent research on Colombia shows the reverse dynamic. Colombian judges supported health-related claims made through an inexpensive form of constitutional litigation called the tutela, giving rise to a new jurisprudence of health-related legal rights (Taylor, 2020). What was the difference between Colombia and China?…”

“…In China, we document a strong association between the courts labeling a case as an example of "abusive litigation" or "consultation" and citizens losing in court. We also offer an account of how the Chinese courts minted and popularized these new legal categories and, in so doing, join others in treating legal opportunities as dynamic, and as shaped by the interactions between judges and claimants (Taylor, 2020;Vanhala, 2018). In contrast to the dominant elite politics explanation of how and why opportunities for legal activism shrink under authoritarianism, the feedback loop we illustrate-of grassroots policy conversion followed by bureaucratic resistance-is slow-moving and low visibility.…”

Social Brokerage: Accountability and the Social Life of Information

“…Information is not simply injectable, but is interpreted through social frames (Snow et al, 1986). Social movement scholars have noted the importance of injustice framings (Tarrow, 1994), and of the social construction of grievances in both protest (Simmons, 2014) and legal mobilization (Taylor, 2020). Through a more quotidian lens, urban sociologists have probed how neighborhood frames influence the decision-making and political activity of individuals (Rosen, 2017;Small, 2004).…”

“…Social brokers work to shift the underlying beliefs that citizens hold about the state and that officials hold about citizens. Their citizen-facing work aims to foster both individual and collective action by framing needs as grievances (Taylor, 2020), calling on notions of rights and entitlements (Simmons, 2014); and by presenting residents with credible courses of action (Ganz, 2011). Their official-facing work seeks to motivate bureaucrats by framing needs as urgent and as legitimate (Gallagher, 2017); and by calling on a combination of intrinsic motivations and extrinsic incentives (Joshi & McCluskey, 2017).…”

“…56See, for example, Nazdeek in India, as well as studies by Sandefur & Clarke, 2016 (United States); Gallagher, 2017 (Mexico); Taylor, 2020 (South Africa).…”