Systematic Study of Group-Based Legal Mobilization

诉讼活动通常影响公共讨论和公共政策，涉及的主题从热点社会问题到监管政策的技术问题。竞选组织者如何决定在何时何地提出什么要求？这些决定如何与官方决定和基层动员相互作用？在这些影响下，诉讼活动如何演变，有时会发展并影响公共讨论和公共政策？以前的研究通常集中在著名法院的关键案件或法律的主张如何影响基层动员。这项研究将扩大重点，包括每一个正式的索赔活动在每一个论坛，然后将研究如何相对成功的这些不同的索赔在不同的论坛形状随着时间的推移运动的过程。这项研究对理解法律对公共政策的贡献和限制具有广泛的意义。 更广泛的影响还包括研究生和本科生的培训和教育。 这项运动是环保组织自2003年以来为阻止全国范围内的燃煤电厂建设而进行的。 作为这一努力的一部分，这些团体在许多类型的论坛上提出了各种各样的法律的要求，从地方法院和规划委员会到环境保护局的行政法庭和联邦上诉法院。这项研究将汇编竞选期间在全国所有论坛上提出的所有主张的数据，然后将这些数据与公开提供的关于州和国家一级政治背景相关方面的数据联合收割机结合起来。 这项研究将是第一次全面分析诉讼运动随着时间的推移，并在政治和法律的论坛在所有相关的司法管辖区。它也是第一个汇集了来自三个文献的理论见解：美国国家的研究，基于群体的法律的动员，资源动员，通常单独研究的主题，并首次使用数据汇编方法，有争议的事件目录，改编自社会运动的研究。

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.