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。上世纪60年代的《民权法案》和《选举权法案》规定，排斥种族的做法是非法的；然而，这些法案并不自动强制执行权利。白人随后适应并部署了新的政治排斥方法。当代的社会和政治背景是不同的，但投票权的模糊性和不确定性是不同的。州选民身份证法、对提前投票的限制、对登记的限制、选民名册清洗、剥夺选举权和不公正的选区划分已经成为少数族裔参与的常见但系统性的障碍。投票权再次受到挑战，新的法律和事实上的选民压制技术再次抬头。然而，试图建立、维持和利用成功的法律动员所需的战略能力的政治组织的数量也是如此。了解阿拉巴马州民主党会议如何发展、维持和使用全州范围的战略能力，并有效地利用20多年来法律动员的支持结构，将有助于我们理解社会运动理论，并提供可以调整的见解，以适应全美和其他西方式民主国家的权利倡导团体的需求。这一研究项目将创建一个关于少数群体政治组织及其法律运动的研究材料储存库。将制作一部简短的纪录片，并向广大受众传播，从地方到国家民间和政治组织，从中学到研究生研讨会。最后，这项研究项目将纳入研究的所有阶段，增加他们的归属感，这与学业成绩高度相关，并传授研究和就业准备技能。这个职业奖侧重于收集和分析数据，关于一个少数族裔政治组织如何在全州范围内持续开展法律运动超过20年(1965年-)，最终达到美国历史上最成功的政治运用法律来执行投票权。为了指导对ADC的审查，该项目依赖于两个理论标题下的先前社会运动研究：法律动员的支持结构和战略能力。本研究项目将采用扎根理论、解释性分析方法和滚雪球抽样作为补充研究策略。该项目将深入了解尚未解决的问题，即法律动员支助结构的不同要素如何与州和联邦两级的成功叛乱相关联。这一分析将增进我们对建立战略能力的机制的理解，以及我们对作为战略能力来源的领导和组织结构的理解。最后，这项研究将增进我们对战略能力的不同方面如何与州和联邦一级法律动员支助结构的不同要素相互作用的理解。事实上，我们对少数族裔投票权组织的法律运动知之甚少。这项研究项目将填补社会法律研究文献中的这一关键空白，并回答有关为政治目的而政治使用法律的关键问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.