11.166
Law, Social Movements, and Public Policy: Comparative and International Experience
Studies the interaction between law, courts, and social movements in shaping domestic and global public policy. Examines how groups mobilize to use law to affect change and why they succeed and fail. Case studies explore the interplay between law, social movements, and public policy in current issues, such as gender, race, labor, trade, climate change/environment, and LGBTQ rights. Introduces theories of public policy, social movements, law and society, and transnational studies. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 15.
Spring 2012
Topics
- Introduction: A General Introduction to the Course, the Main Substantive Themes and the Requirements
- Social Movements, NGOs and Civil Society: How are They Different?
- Social Movements and the State: How Do They Interact?
- Law, Social Movements and Public Policy: Changing Domestic Contexts
- Law, Social Movements and Public Policy: Changing Global Contexts
- Legal and Social Change in the US: Contesting Perspectives
- Environment as an Arena of Struggle
- Law and American Labor Movement
- Feminism and Women’s Movements
- Race, Poverty and the Struggle for Social Justice
- The Conservative Movement, Policy Change and Law
- Preparation for Field-component on Occupy Wall Street
- Field Work Report Back
- Legal and Social Change in India: The Role of Mobilization and Activism
- Women’s Rights v. Gender Justice
- Caste and the Struggle with/through Law
- Contesting Development: Law and Struggle in the Narmada Valley
- Human Rights, Social Movements and Public Interest Litigation
- Beyond the State? Changing Contexts for Law-making and Application at the Global Level
- The World Commission on Dams and the Struggle over Development
- Setting Global Environmental and Health Policy: The Case of Nuclear Weapons
- Global Economic Institutions and Resistance from the Margins
- The World Trade Organization as a Policy Machine
- Human Rights Law as Global Public Policy
- Conclusion and Review Class
Readings
- [Rosenberg] = Rosenberg, Gerald. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226726717.
- SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction: A General Introduction to the Course, the Main Substantive Themes and the Requirements · READINGS: No readings
- Giugni, Marco. “How Social Movements Matter: Past Research, Present Problems, Future Developments.” In How Social Movements Matter. Edited by Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly. University of Minnesota Press, 1999, pp. xiii–xxxiii. ISBN: 9780816629152.
- Walzer, Michael. “The Civil Society Argument.” In Dimensions of Radical Democracy . Edited by Chantal Mouffe. Verso Books, 1992, pp. 89–107. ISBN: 9780860913443.
- Kothari, Rajni. “Masses, Classes and the State.” In New Social Movements in the South: Empowering the People. Edited by P. Wignaraja. Zed Books, 1993, pp. 59–75. ISBN: 9781856491082.
- Theodoulou, Stella Z. “The Contemporary Language of Public Policy: A Starting Point.” In Public Policy: The Essential Readings . Edited by Stella Z. Theodoulou, and Mathew A. Cahn. Pearson, 1994, pp. 1–9. ISBN: 9780130592552.
- Burstein, Paul. “Social Movements and Public Policy.” In How Social Movements Matter . Edited by Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly. University of Minnesota Press, 1999, pp. 3–21. ISBN: 9780816629152.
- McCann, Michael, and Helena Silverstein. “Rethinking Law’s “Allurements”: A Relational Analysis of Social Movement Lawyers in the United States.” In Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities . Edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 261–92. ISBN: 9780195113204.
- Ellmann, Stephe. “Cause Lawyering in the Third World.” In Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities. Edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 349–430. ISBN: 9780195113204.
- Hay, Colin. “Globalization and Public Policy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy . Edited by Michael Moran, Martin Rein, and Robert E. Goodin. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780199269280.
- Keck, Margaret, and Kathryn Sikkink. Chapters 1 and 6 in Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Network in International Politics . Cornell University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780801484568.
- Shue, Henry. “The Ethical Dimensions of Public Policy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy. Edited by Michael Moran, Martin Rein, and Robert E. Goodin eds. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780199269280.
- Marshall, Anna-Maria. Judicial Policy-Making and Sexual Harassment: A Response to Rosenberg’s The Hollow Hope (Unpublished).
- Forbath, William. Chapters 1 and 5 in Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement . Harvard University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780674517820.
- Klare, Karl E. “Critical Theory and Labor Relations Law.” In The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique . 3rd ed. Edited by D. Kairys. Basic Books, 1998. ISBN: 9780465059591.
- Rosenberg, Gerald. Part II, chapters 7, 8 and 9 in The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? University of Chicago Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780226727028.
- [Rosenberg] Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5.
- Fox-Piven, Frances, and Richard Cloward. Chapter 1 and 3 in Poor Peoples’ Movements . Vintage, 1978, pp. 1–40, and 96–180. ISBN: 9780394726977.
- Teles, Steven. Chapters 1, 5, 6 and 7 in The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law . Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780691122083.
- Omvedt, Gail. “The Rise of Alternative Politics.” In Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Traditions in India. M E Sharpe Inc, 1992, pp. 257–97. ISBN: 9780873327855.
- Kapur, Ratna, and Brenda Cossman. “On Women, Equality and the Constitution: Through the Looking Glass of Feminism.” National Law Journal 1, no. 1 (1993).
- Kumar, Radha. “From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women’s Movement.” In The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective . Edited by Amrita Basu. Westview Press, 1995, pp. 58–86. ISBN: 9780813326283.
- Omvedt, Gail. Chapters 4 and 9 in Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Traditions in India. M E Sharpe Inc, 1992, pp. 76–99 and 199–231. ISBN: 9780873327855.
- Rao, Anupama. “Legislating Caste Atrocity.” Chapter 4 in The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India . University of California Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780520257610.
- Dirks, Nicholas. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India . Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691088952.
- Rajagopal, Balakrishnan. “Judicial Governance and the Ideology of Human Rights: Reflections from a Social Movement Perspective.” In Human Rights, Justice and Constitutional Empowerment: Essays in Honor of Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer . Edited by C. Rajkumar, and K. Chockalingam. 2005. ISBN: 9780195686913.
- Shankar, Shylashri, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. “Courts and Socioeconomic Rights in India.” In Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World . Edited by Varun Gauri, and Daniel Brinks. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521873765.
- Baar, Carl. “Social Action Litigation in India: The Operation and Limits of the World’s Most Active Judiciary.” In Comparative Judicial Review and Public Policy . Edited by Donald W. Jackson, and C. Neal Tate. Praeger, 1992. ISBN: 9780313286155.
- [O’Brien] Chapter 1.
- Reinicke, Wolfgang. Chapter 2 in Global Public Policy: Governing without Government? Brookings Institution Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780815773894.
- Report of the World Commission on Dams, released in November 2000, especially chapters 1–4, 6–8.
- Falk, Richard. “The Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion and the New Jurisprudence of Global Civil Society.” In Law in an Emerging Global Village . Transnational Pub, 1998, pp. 165–88. ISBN: 9781571050663.
- [O’Brien] Chapters 2, 4, and 5.
- [O’Brien] Chapter 3.
- Stephens, Beth. Chapters 1 and 4 in Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics . Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780521712323.
- Rosenberg, Gerald. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226726717.
Prerequisites & course information
Subject meets with 11.496 Prereq: Permission of instructor U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units. HASS-S
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2012
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.