Labour and Constitutionalism-from-Below: On the Effective Potential of Legal Strategy

我的研究的中心目标是理解工人运动如何与法律作为实现其政治要求的手段进行战略接触。我研究了与法律文书有效的战略接触的特征，从具体的立法规定到更抽象的宪法价值，并评估了可以促进劳工民主野心的法律战略类型。今天，劳工面临着重大的政治，法律和经济挑战，这使得它成为社会法律调查的关键主题。我的研究回应了劳工的社会经济和法律背景，并致力于描述和批判性地评估运动如何使用法律机制来重新平衡劳动力和资本之间的当前关系。在奖学金期间，我将参与有关宪政民主国家社会斗争机构的学术辩论，以及当代劳工运动（如“零工经济”工人）利用法律作为社会解放工具的方式。为此，我将通过将我的博士研究整合为三篇期刊文章来建立一个可靠的出版记录，这些文章将形成一个独特的研究领域，将社会法律调查与劳动法和宪法理论的紧迫问题联系起来。这将是对宪法理论的重大贡献，因为它挑战了目前对自上而下的政府过程的关注，并鼓励了一种“自下而上”的创新方法。在社会法律和劳动法领域，我的研究回归到一个休眠但基本的社会法律分析流-法律动员奖学金。根据理论和实证分析，我提供了评估标准，从中评估法律作为政治斗争工具的机会和局限性，并严格描述了阿根廷工厂恢复运动的法律动员。我的研究是由理解当代劳工的法律和政治结构的异质经验的挑战，以及在何种程度上劳动可以被理解为宪法框架内的社会和政治力量的动机。在当代条件下，劳工面临着工作的碎片化，法律允许的工业行动形式的空心化，以及劳动保护的放松管制。为了理解劳动的背景，并得出关于其与法律结构的潜在生产关系的一般性结论，我将扩展我对法律斗争的实证分析的承诺。通过对英国、希腊和西班牙劳工法律斗争的案例研究，我将对影响劳工与法律战略接触的背景因素进行比较分析。为了进一步揭示劳工法律挑战的特殊性和不断变化的性质，有必要建立一个由研究人员和研究用户组成的合作网络。我将组织一个研讨会，促进学术和非学术观众之间的合作，有助于当前的劳动和法律斗争的学术概念，并催化未来研究的严格领域。这些会议的目的是为劳工运动提供有效战略的实用指导，一份政策报告，并努力编纂一本记录劳工斗争实际经验的汇编。该奖学金是一个实现目标的绝佳机会，将对我未来的研究生涯做出重大贡献。博士后职位将为我提供条件，在此条件下，我可以建立发表记录，为当前的学术辩论贡献新的研究，建立网络，获得新的教学经验，通过培训机会提高我的专业和学术技能，并开发资金申请。这个活动计划的重点是支持我作为英国高等教育部门的学者的职业抱负，并将是至关重要的。

The central aim of my research is to comprehend how labour movements engage strategically with law as a means to realise their political demands. I investigate the characteristics of effective strategic engagements with legal instruments, from concrete legislative provisions to more abstract constitutional values, and evaluate the types of legal strategies that can facilitate labour's democratic ambitions. Today, labour faces significant political, legal, and economic challenges which makes it a key subject of socio-legal inquiry. My research responds to labour's socio-economic and legal context and is committed to describing and critically evaluating how movements have used legal mechanisms to re-balance the present relation between labour and capital.During the Fellowship I will engage with academic debates about the agency of social struggles in constitutional democracies and the ways that contemporary labour movements, such as 'gig economy' workers, have used law as a tool of social emancipation. To do so, I will establish a proven publication record by consolidating my PhD research into three journal articles that shape a distinctive research field connecting socio-legal inquiry with pressing concerns in labour law and constitutional theory. This will represent a significant contribution to constitutional theory because it contests the present focus on top-down governmental processes and encourages an innovative methodological approach 'from-below'. In the socio-legal and labour law fields, my research returns to a dormant yet fundamental stream of socio-legal analysis- legal mobilisation scholarship. Drawing on both theoretical and empirical analysis, I provide evaluative criteria from which to assess the opportunities and limitations of law as a tool of political struggle and a rigorous account of legal mobilisation by the factory recuperation movement in Argentina.My research is motivated by the challenge of comprehending contemporary labour's heterogenous experience of legal and political structures, and the extent to which labour can be understood as a societal and political force within constitutional frameworks. Under contemporary conditions labour is confronted with the fragmentation of work, the hollowing-out of legally permissible forms of industrial action, and the deregulation of labour protections. To comprehend the context of labour and to draw generalisable conclusions about its potentially productive relation with legal structures, I will extend my commitment to empirical analysis of legal struggles. Through case studies of labour's legal struggles in the U.K., Greece, and Spain I will provide comparative analysis of the contextual factors that shape labour's strategic engagements with law.In order to further uncover the specificity and changing nature of labour's legal challenge, it is necessary to develop a collaborative network of researchers and research users. I will organise a workshop that facilitates collaborations between academic and non-academic audiences, contributes to current academic conceptions of labour and legal struggle, and catalyse a rigorous field of future research. These meetings aim to produce practical guidance about effective strategies for labour movements, a policy report, and work towards an edited collection documenting labour's practical experiences of struggle.The Fellowship is an outstanding opportunity to achieve aims and objectives that will significantly contribute to my future research career. A postdoctoral position will provide the conditions under which I can establish a publication record, contribute new research to current academic debates, build networks, gain new teaching experience, improve my professional and academic skills through training opportunities, and develop funding applications. This programme of activities is focused toward and will be critical in supporting my career ambitions as an academic in the U.K. higher education sector.