The Travelling Problem: The Concept of Legal Mobilization in Comparative Research on Europe

• In Event: Europe’s Courts: Between Bottom-up Mobilization and Popular Backlash

Abstract

The study of the role of law and courts in European politics is thriving. Scholars have undertaken cross-national studies of legal mobilization by gender equality activists, disability rights organizations, immigrant lawyers, environmental NGOs and LGBTQ communities across a number of different European jurisdictions. This paper explores the concept of legal mobilization through the lens of this cross-national comparative research. The paper follows Sartori (1970) in arguing that “the wider the world under investigation, the more we need conceptual tools that are able to travel.” As such, the paper addresses a number of questions. How have scholars undertaking cross-national comparative research conceptualized legal mobilization? What are the challenges they have identified in conceptualizing and operationalizing legal mobilization across different jurisdictions, across cultures and over time? To address these questions the paper will systematically review research on legal mobilization in Europe over the last decade. The paper will develop a typology of how scholars coming from both institutional and cultural perspectives have conceptualized and operationalized legal mobilization in comparative research. The aim is to clarify what we mean when we talk about legal mobilization in different places and across time and to contribute to methodological debates about to assess the mobilization of law.

Author

• Lisa C. Vanhala, University College London