CAREER: We Dare Defend Our Rights: The Political Use of Law in the Enforcement of Voting Rights

最近的选举表明，政治组织仍然很重要。20世纪60年代的《民权和选举权法案》规定种族排斥行为是非法的;然而，这些法案并没有自动执行权利。白人随后采用并部署了新的政治排斥方法。当代的社会和政治背景不同，但投票权的模糊性和不确定性却没有改变。州选民身份法、提前投票限制、登记限制、选民名单清洗、剥夺选举权和选区划分已成为少数群体参与的常见但系统性的障碍。投票权再次受到挑战，新的法律上和事实上压制选民的手段再次出现。然而，试图建立、维持和利用成功的法律的动员所必需的战略能力的政治组织的数量也是如此。了解亚拉巴马民主会议如何发展，持续，并采用全州的战略能力，并有效地利用了支持结构的法律的动员超过二十年将告知我们的社会运动理论的理解，并提供见解，可以适应整个美国和其他西式民主国家的权利倡导团体的需求。这一研究项目将建立一个关于少数群体政治组织及其法律的运动的研究材料库。将制作一部简短的纪录片，并向从地方到国家的民间和政治组织以及从中学到研究生研讨会的广大听众散发。最后，该研究项目将在研究的各个阶段纳入代表性不足的学生，增加他们的归属感，这与学术成果高度相关，这个职业生涯奖的重点是收集和分析一个少数民族政治组织如何在二十多年的时间里持续开展全州范围的法律的运动的数据（1965年至1989年）在美国历史上最成功的政治使用法律来执行投票权。为了指导对ADC的审查，本项目依赖于先前在两个理论标题下的社会运动研究：法律的动员和战略能力的支持结构。本研究计划将采用扎根理论、解释性分析方法和滚雪球抽样作为补充研究策略。该项目将深入探讨有关法律的动员支助结构的不同要素如何与州和联邦两级成功的叛乱活动相关联的未决问题。这一分析将促进我们对战略能力形成机制的理解，以及对领导和组织结构作为战略能力来源的理解。最后，这项研究将推进我们的理解，战略能力的不同方面如何与不同的元素，支持结构的法律的动员在州和联邦一级。事实上，我们对少数投票权组织的法律的运动了解不多。该研究项目将填补社会法律研究文献中的这一关键空白，并回答有关将法律用于政治目的的关键问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Recent elections have shown that political organizations still matter. The Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960’s made racially exclusionary practices illegal; nevertheless, they did not automatically enforce rights. Whites subsequently adapted and deployed new methods of political exclusion. The contemporary social and political context is different, but the ambiguity and indeterminacy of voting rights are not. State voter ID laws, limits on early voting, restrictions on registration, voter roll purges, disenfranchisement, and gerrymandering have become ordinary yet systemic barriers to minority participation. Voting rights are again being challenged and new de jure and de facto voter suppression techniques are again on the rise. Yet so too are the number of political organizations attempting to build, sustain, and employ the strategic capacity necessary for successful legal mobilization. Understanding how the Alabama Democratic Conference developed, sustained, and employed statewide strategic capacity and effectively capitalized on the support structure for legal mobilization for over twenty years will inform our understanding of social movement theory and provide insights that can be adapted to fit the needs of rights advocacy groups across the United States and in other western-style democracies. This research project will create a repository of research materials on minority political organizations and their legal campaigns. A short documentary will be created and disseminated to a wide audience, from local to national civic and political organizations and from secondary schools to graduate seminars. Lastly, this research project will incorporate underrepresented students at all stages of the research, increasing their sense of belonging, which is highly correlated with academic outcomes, and imparting research and job readiness skills.This CAREER award focuses on collecting and analyzing data on how a minority political organization sustained a statewide legal campaign for over twenty years (1965-1989) culminating in the most successful political usage of law to enforce voting rights in American history. To guide examination of the ADC, this project relies on prior social movement research under two theoretical headings: the support structure for legal mobilization and strategic capacity. This research project will employ grounded theory, an interpretative analytic approach, and snowball sampling as a complimentary research strategy. This project will provide insight into unresolved questions about how different elements of the support structure for legal mobilization are correlated with successful insurgency at both the state and federal levels. This analysis will advance our understanding of the mechanisms through which strategic capacity is created and our understanding of leadership and organizational structures as sources of strategic capacity. Finally, this research will advance our understanding of how different aspects of strategic capacity interact with the different elements of the support structure for legal mobilization at the state and federal level. In truth, we do not know much about the legal campaigns of minority voting rights organizations. This research project will fill this crucial gap in the socio-legal research literature and answer key questions regarding the political use of law for political purposes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.