Prior research has repeatedly documented the existence of gender inequality, discrimination, and harassment in the legal practice, an occupation that remains maledominated in terms of both numbers and organizational culture. Despite the availability of some legal remedies, women attorneys rarely sue their employers, and often do not challenge discriminatory behavior. In this dissertation, I explore this seemingly contradictory situation, where lawyers fail to employ the legal system on their own behalf, and I seek to determine whether the law can in fact be mobilized to challenge and perhaps change gender relations in the legal practice. Through ethnographic field research and content analysis of an Internet community, my research examines possible methods by which the law can serve as a tool to challenge gender discrimination. Further, I assess the manner in which the Internet community itself can serve as a vehicle for challenging gender inequality. In particular, I first explore the role formal litigation might play in promoting change for women attorneys, determining that attorneys in the Internet community are hesitant to employ litigation to challenge gender discrimination. This reluctance appears to result in large part from attorneys’ familiarity with the daunting task of establishing a discrimination case in the judicial system, as well as from a fear that the pursuit of litigation could inflict damage upon their legal careers. I then consider whether the law can serve as a useful tool to challenge inequality when legal discourse is employed within the Internet community to invoke a legal right to a discrimination-free workplace. I find that attorneys, despite their legal training, call upon both formal and informal notions of discrimination when confronted with circumstances colored with inequity. The Internet community itself provides a protected, semianonymous forum in which to engage in such discourse, thereby subverting many of the barriers that currently exist to challenging gender inequality in the legal practice. Further, the community serves as a resource to bring public attention to bear upon law firms, creating external pressures which encourage a reevaluation of both lay and legal understandings of prohibited gender discrimination.

This dissertation examines the development of litigation and legal mobilization as constructive, participatory, strategic processes that have the potential to promote democratization and institution building in fragile democracies. Using Argentina and Bolivia as case studies, I show that the innovative use of strategic litigation and legal mobilization taking place in Latin America today holds significant promise for promoting social and institutional development in countries struggling with competing democratic and authoritarian impulses. A close examination of how local and regional permutations of strategic litigation play out at the intersection of law and politics in fragile democracies generates a more accurate, richer account of the relationship between law and democracy writ large, a relationship that has yet to be fully or properly theorized. / text

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é explorar a mobilização legal de causas políticas, a partir de um estudo de caso sobre quatro entidades de defesa de direitos brasileiras: Sociedade Paraense de Direitos Humanos - SDDH , Centro de Defesa de Direitos Humanos Petrópolis – CDDH, Grupo de Assistência Jurídica às Organizações Populares – GAJOP, e Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação - CEPIA. Com base predominantemente no uso da metodologia qualitativa, foram analisados relatórios de atividades anuais, revistas e folhetos, produzidos pelas referidas ONGs no período que abrange 1998 até 2010. Visando explorar os distintos formatos de atuação destas entidades no processo de defesa e construção de causas políticas, foram construídas categorias analíticas, que anunciam os principais argumentos emergentes. Os argumentos mais recorrentemente mobilizados caracterizam uma tendência de ativismo por parte das agentes das entidades estudadas. Questões de gênero, diversidade racial e vulnerabilidade social são temas tratados como sendo questão de “direitos humanos”, revelando a apropriação de distintos recursos do universo jurídico e diferentes usos do direito enquanto forma estratégica de mobilização política. / The objective of the current research is to explore legal mobilization of political causes starting with a case study about four brazilian human right’s institutions: Paraense Human Rights Society – SDDH, Petrópolis Human Rights Defence Center – CDDH, Popular Organizations Legal Assistance Group – GAJOP, and Citizenship, Studies, Research, Information and Action – CEPIA. Mainly based in the use of qualitative methodology, anual activity reports, magazines and flyers produced by refered NGOs within the years 1998 to 2010 were analyzed. With the aim of studying these institutions’ distinct performance formats in the process of putting up and defending political causes. Analytical categories were built, announcing the main emerging arguments. The most recurringly mobilized arguments feature an activism tendency by agents of the researched institutions, which are within a point of view related to Law and Feminism, gender issues, racial diversity and social vulnerability as a matter of “human rights”, prioritizing the appropriation of distinct uses of Law, as well as, resources from law universe as a form of strategic political mobilization.

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é explorar a mobilização legal de causas políticas, a partir de um estudo de caso sobre quatro entidades de defesa de direitos brasileiras: Sociedade Paraense de Direitos Humanos - SDDH , Centro de Defesa de Direitos Humanos Petrópolis – CDDH, Grupo de Assistência Jurídica às Organizações Populares – GAJOP, e Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação - CEPIA. Com base predominantemente no uso da metodologia qualitativa, foram analisados relatórios de atividades anuais, revistas e folhetos, produzidos pelas referidas ONGs no período que abrange 1998 até 2010. Visando explorar os distintos formatos de atuação destas entidades no processo de defesa e construção de causas políticas, foram construídas categorias analíticas, que anunciam os principais argumentos emergentes. Os argumentos mais recorrentemente mobilizados caracterizam uma tendência de ativismo por parte das agentes das entidades estudadas. Questões de gênero, diversidade racial e vulnerabilidade social são temas tratados como sendo questão de “direitos humanos”, revelando a apropriação de distintos recursos do universo jurídico e diferentes usos do direito enquanto forma estratégica de mobilização política. / The objective of the current research is to explore legal mobilization of political causes starting with a case study about four brazilian human right’s institutions: Paraense Human Rights Society – SDDH, Petrópolis Human Rights Defence Center – CDDH, Popular Organizations Legal Assistance Group – GAJOP, and Citizenship, Studies, Research, Information and Action – CEPIA. Mainly based in the use of qualitative methodology, anual activity reports, magazines and flyers produced by refered NGOs within the years 1998 to 2010 were analyzed. With the aim of studying these institutions’ distinct performance formats in the process of putting up and defending political causes. Analytical categories were built, announcing the main emerging arguments. The most recurringly mobilized arguments feature an activism tendency by agents of the researched institutions, which are within a point of view related to Law and Feminism, gender issues, racial diversity and social vulnerability as a matter of “human rights”, prioritizing the appropriation of distinct uses of Law, as well as, resources from law universe as a form of strategic political mobilization.

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é explorar a mobilização legal de causas políticas, a partir de um estudo de caso sobre quatro entidades de defesa de direitos brasileiras: Sociedade Paraense de Direitos Humanos - SDDH , Centro de Defesa de Direitos Humanos Petrópolis – CDDH, Grupo de Assistência Jurídica às Organizações Populares – GAJOP, e Cidadania, Estudo, Pesquisa, Informação e Ação - CEPIA. Com base predominantemente no uso da metodologia qualitativa, foram analisados relatórios de atividades anuais, revistas e folhetos, produzidos pelas referidas ONGs no período que abrange 1998 até 2010. Visando explorar os distintos formatos de atuação destas entidades no processo de defesa e construção de causas políticas, foram construídas categorias analíticas, que anunciam os principais argumentos emergentes. Os argumentos mais recorrentemente mobilizados caracterizam uma tendência de ativismo por parte das agentes das entidades estudadas. Questões de gênero, diversidade racial e vulnerabilidade social são temas tratados como sendo questão de “direitos humanos”, revelando a apropriação de distintos recursos do universo jurídico e diferentes usos do direito enquanto forma estratégica de mobilização política. / The objective of the current research is to explore legal mobilization of political causes starting with a case study about four brazilian human right’s institutions: Paraense Human Rights Society – SDDH, Petrópolis Human Rights Defence Center – CDDH, Popular Organizations Legal Assistance Group – GAJOP, and Citizenship, Studies, Research, Information and Action – CEPIA. Mainly based in the use of qualitative methodology, anual activity reports, magazines and flyers produced by refered NGOs within the years 1998 to 2010 were analyzed. With the aim of studying these institutions’ distinct performance formats in the process of putting up and defending political causes. Analytical categories were built, announcing the main emerging arguments. The most recurringly mobilized arguments feature an activism tendency by agents of the researched institutions, which are within a point of view related to Law and Feminism, gender issues, racial diversity and social vulnerability as a matter of “human rights”, prioritizing the appropriation of distinct uses of Law, as well as, resources from law universe as a form of strategic political mobilization.

This dissertation is a study of a social movement based on the organizations that define that movement, with specific attention to Christian conservative legal organizations (CCLOs) and their advocacy for the Christian Right in American politics. I ask, how do these organizations differ from one another in their advocacy efforts? How is this movement industry structured with respect to organizational networks? And how do the differences and variation among these organizations affect the dynamics among these groups? That is, how do organizations interact in the confines of a shared movement? This study addresses the literatures on law and society, religion and politics, and social movements, acting as a bridge between these distinct areas of inquiry. Using social network analysis, qualitative content analysis, and original interviews with movement attorneys, I find that CCLOs differ in their behaviors in their industry of activism and in their interaction with other CCLOs. I further argue that these behaviors are best understood in terms of unique organizational characteristics like structure, expertise, and relations with other groups. I conclude that organizations bearing surface similarities to one another can actually differ in meaningful ways, ways that facilitate and drive interaction among these groups in their shared movement and movement industry.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine under what political conditions public policy issues are likely to become judicialized in Argentina. This study shows that the most widespread theoretical explanation, the loser argument, is too general and does not provide much analytical insight about the relationship between the political context and the judicialization of policy. Meanwhile, other explanations developed by the literature, mainly the politically disadvantaged group and the fragmented legislative power, although theoretically valid, have a limited empirical coverage and cannot fully explain the phenomenon of policy judicialization in Argentina. Taking into account the limitations and contributions of the existing theories, the theoretical argument of this dissertation is predicated upon the idea that there are various, alternative political scenarios under which judicialization is likely to occur. In other words, there is not just one, but several, different political conditions or combinations of conditions that might trigger the involvement of courts in public policy. Within this conceptual framework, the dissertation argues that policy disputes are likely to become judicialized under two political scenarios which have not been considered by the existing literature: first, when the state apparatus is unable to implement or enforce policy goals and mandates already approved by the political branches of government, and second, when the political elites in charge of the executive do not fully support existing policy mandates, and the legislature is too passive or deferential to the government regarding that policy issue. In these types of political contexts, social actors are likely to judicialize their policy claims. To assess these arguments, the dissertation develops a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 13 major policy conflicts that occurred in Argentina during the last two decades, complemented by case studies. As a result of my analysis, I identify three combinations of political conditions that are sufficient to trigger the judicialization of policy in Argentina. Two of these combinations clearly fit with my theoretical argument and expectations about what political scenarios are likely to lead to policy judicialization, while the third combination closely reflects the political disadvantage argument. / text

Cortes e sociedade civil na América Latina estão em transformação, assim como a sua relação. Casos de grande repercussão social, decisões judiciais que incidem sobre políticas públicas, concentração de efeitos das sentenças, mecanismos de deliberação dentro dos processos são fenômenos relacionados a essas transformações. A tese deste trabalho é de que tanto o desenho institucional das cortes influencia a mobilização social jurídica, quanto a presença de uma forte mobilização social em torno das cortes pode influenciar não só a sua agenda de casos, mas também o seu desenho institucional. E esta relação precisa ser estudada de modo dinâmico e funcional. Para tanto, foram realizadas entrevistas com organizações não governamentais, think tanks, acadêmicos, magistrados e agência financiadora na Argentina, Brasil e Colômbia. É a narrativa comparada desses atores que oferece as variáveis de desenho institucional e mobilização social jurídica relevantes para compreender essas transformações. O trabalho, por fim, aponta para a necessidade de reformulação das agendas dos atores envolvidos sobre como pensar a inter-relação entre cortes e sociedade civil, tanto em termos de experimentação prática, imaginação institucional, desafios teóricos e de legitimação. / Courts and civil society in Latin America are under transformation, as well as the relationship between them. Cases of great social repercussion, judicial decisions which affect public policies, concentration effects of judgments, deliberation mechanisms within the processes are phenomena related to these changes. The thesis of this work is that both the institutional design of the courts affect social legal mobilization and the presence of strong social mobilization around the courts can influence not only their cases agenda, but also its institutional design. This relationship needs to be studied in a dynamic and functional way. To this end, interviews were conducted with nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, scholars, judges and funding agencies in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. It is the compared narrative of these actors that offers the \"variables\" of institutional design and of legal and social mobilization that are relevant to understand these changes. The thesis finally points to the need to reform the agendas of the actors involved on the reflections about the interplay between courts and civil society, in terms of practical experimentation, institutional imagination, theoretical challenges and legitimation.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-07-31T13:44:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Clara Moura Masiero_.pdf: 4150484 bytes, checksum: fd5681fde0539c899c046d8a99cc8c41 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-31T13:44:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Clara Moura Masiero_.pdf: 4150484 bytes, checksum: fd5681fde0539c899c046d8a99cc8c41 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-01 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta tese trata da relação entre movimentos sociais e direito (penal) e seu eventual reflexo na política criminal brasileira. Há dois objetivos centrais: primeiro, analisar o papel do direito – em especial do direito penal – na atuação dos movimentos sociais e para a mudança social; e, segundo, compreender a política criminal brasileira voltada aos crimes de discriminação, motivados por preconceito ou, também chamados, crimes de ódio, e verificar sua permeabilidade às demandas dos movimentos sociais. Para tanto, a tese está dividida em duas partes: a primeira apresenta fundamentalmente o marco teórico, enquanto a segunda, traz a pesquisa empírica. O marco teórico da tese envolve a combinação de quatro perspectivas teóricas: (i) as teorias dos movimentos sociais; (ii) a teoria da mobilização do direito (legal mobilization); (iii) a teoria crítica do direito (penal); e, (iv) as perspectivas de análise de política criminal. A partir dessa moldura analítica, concluiu-se que nem toda expansão do direito penal representa “populismo punitivo” (política criminal irracional e desnecessária). É possível expansão penal legítima e com efetividade aceitável, a que se chama “realismo de esquerda”, desde que presentes as seguintes variáveis: (i) decorrer de um problema social concreto; (ii) representar dano a um bem jurídico relevante; e, (iii) absorver discurso produzido pelos atores sociais envolvidos/afetados por este problema. A criminalização dos “crimes de ódio” atende a esses requisitos, pois são demandas provenientes de movimentos sociais, que geram dano relevante a um bem jurídico público, qual seja a dignidade de membros de determinados grupos sociais, cuja situação histórica de marginalização social, mantém-lhes em situação de desigualdade de status social, o que acaba por prejudicar a própria consolidação democrática. Segundo a pesquisa empírica, nem todas as leis brasileiras voltadas a enfrentar o preconceito, entretanto, seguem esta política criminal legítima. A pesquisa envolveu a identificação e seleção das leis penais (ou com relevância penal) brasileiras voltadas a enfrentar violências discriminatórias ou motivadas por preconceito e os respectivos documentos produzidos durante suas tramitações (totalizando 34 leis, isto é, em torno de 11% das leis penais aprovadas no período). Para a análise do banco de dados e verificação de sua interlocução com os discursos dos movimentos sociais, optou-se por delimitar o campo a três movimentos: Feminista, Negro e LGBTQ. Com isso, foram analisadas as leis penais voltadas à raça, sexo, gênero, orientação sexual e identidade de gênero (totalizando 29 leis). Dessas, somente “identidade de gênero” não consta em nenhuma lei penal. A pesquisa empírica envolveu, também, entrevistas com ativistas desses movimentos sociais. O campo confirmou que há certa permeabilidade entre a atuação dos movimentos sociais e a política criminal brasileira. Inclusive, as leis que mais se aproximam do discurso do movimento social envolvido, redundam em maior efetividade (“realismo de esquerda”); enquanto leis que não decorrem de um problema empírico concreto ou não absorvem o discurso produzido no interior dos movimentos sociais acabam carecendo de efetividade e conformando uma medida desnecessária (“populismo punitivo”). / This thesis is about the relationship between social movements and (criminal) law and their possible indirect influence on Brazilian criminal policy. There are two central objectives: firstly, analysing the role of law - especially criminal law - in the actions of social movements and for social change; and, secondly, understanding Brazilian criminal policy directed at discrimination crimes, motivated by prejudice or also referred to as hate crimes, and assessing whether it may be permeated by the demands of social movements. As such, this thesis is divided into two parts: the first one basically presents the theoretical framework, while the second one introduces the empirical research. The theoretical framework of this thesis involves the merger of four theoretical perspectives: (i) the theories of social movements; (ii) the theory of legal mobilization; (iii) the critical theory of (criminal) law; and, (iv) the perspectives of criminal policy analysis. Based on this framing of the analysis, it was concluded that not every expansion of criminal law constitutes "punitive populism" (irrational and unnecessary criminal policy). Legitimate criminal expansion is possible, with acceptable effectiveness, towards what is referred to as "left realism", provided that the following variables exist: (i) resulting from an actual social problem (ii) constituting harm to a significant legal interest; and, (iii) absorbing the discourse produced by the social agents involved/affected by this problem. The criminalization of "hate crimes" satisfies these requirements, since they are demands originating from social movements, which give rise to significant harm to a public legal interest, which is the dignity of members of certain social groups, whose historical status of being socially marginalized keeps them in a situation of inequality in terms of social status, which ends up jeopardizing the consolidation of democracy among them. According to the empirical research, not all Brazilian laws directed at tackling prejudice, nevertheless, follow this legitimate criminal policy. The research involved the identification and selection of Brazilian criminal laws (or laws with criminal significance) directed at tackling discriminatory violence or violence motivated by prejudice and respective documents produced during respective prosecution (totalling 34 laws, that is, around 11% of criminal laws approved during the period). For the analysis of the database and assessment of respective dialogue with the discourse of social movements, the decision was taken to limit the scope to three movements: Feminist, Black and LGBTQ. In this way, criminal laws aimed at race, gender, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity (totalling 29 laws) were analysed. Out of these, only "gender identity" does not feature in any criminal law. The empirical research also involved interviews with activists from these social movements. The scope confirmed that there is a certain level of permeability between the actions of social movements and Brazilian criminal policy. In actual fact, laws that are closest to the discourse of the social movement involved result in greater effectiveness ("left realism"); while laws that do not originate from an actual empirical problem and do not absorb the discourse produced as part of social movements end up lacking effectiveness and taking shape as an unnecessary measure ("punitive populism").

Cortes e sociedade civil na América Latina estão em transformação, assim como a sua relação. Casos de grande repercussão social, decisões judiciais que incidem sobre políticas públicas, concentração de efeitos das sentenças, mecanismos de deliberação dentro dos processos são fenômenos relacionados a essas transformações. A tese deste trabalho é de que tanto o desenho institucional das cortes influencia a mobilização social jurídica, quanto a presença de uma forte mobilização social em torno das cortes pode influenciar não só a sua agenda de casos, mas também o seu desenho institucional. E esta relação precisa ser estudada de modo dinâmico e funcional. Para tanto, foram realizadas entrevistas com organizações não governamentais, think tanks, acadêmicos, magistrados e agência financiadora na Argentina, Brasil e Colômbia. É a narrativa comparada desses atores que oferece as variáveis de desenho institucional e mobilização social jurídica relevantes para compreender essas transformações. O trabalho, por fim, aponta para a necessidade de reformulação das agendas dos atores envolvidos sobre como pensar a inter-relação entre cortes e sociedade civil, tanto em termos de experimentação prática, imaginação institucional, desafios teóricos e de legitimação. / Courts and civil society in Latin America are under transformation, as well as the relationship between them. Cases of great social repercussion, judicial decisions which affect public policies, concentration effects of judgments, deliberation mechanisms within the processes are phenomena related to these changes. The thesis of this work is that both the institutional design of the courts affect social legal mobilization and the presence of strong social mobilization around the courts can influence not only their cases agenda, but also its institutional design. This relationship needs to be studied in a dynamic and functional way. To this end, interviews were conducted with nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, scholars, judges and funding agencies in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. It is the compared narrative of these actors that offers the \"variables\" of institutional design and of legal and social mobilization that are relevant to understand these changes. The thesis finally points to the need to reform the agendas of the actors involved on the reflections about the interplay between courts and civil society, in terms of practical experimentation, institutional imagination, theoretical challenges and legitimation.