Law as weapon of the weak? A comparative analysis of legal mobilization by Roma and women's groups at the European level

ABSTRACT

This article is interested with the legal mobilization of transnational interest groups at the European level (European Union and Council of Europe). It compares the legal and political lobbying strategies of two umbrella organizations – the European Women's Lobby (EWL) and the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF), which seek respectively to promote the rights of women and those of Roma – focusing on their interactions with European institutions and law. The article analyses the contrasted relationship of these groups to legal mobilization as a rights advancement strategy, shedding new light on how law can be strategically used by both strong and weak civil society actors. Beyond classical factors linked to organizational characteristics and identity, the differential usages of law by the two groups are explained by the role of strategic actors who adapt to the specificities of the system of governance in the two policy sectors – gender equality and anti-discrimination.

KEY WORDS:

• European Union
• interest groups' strategies
• lobbying
• Roma's rights
• transnational legal mobilization
• women's rights

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first idea for this article came during a CEE–Sciences Po seminar co-ordinated by Florence Faucher and Virginie Guiraudon. The authors wish to acknowledge the useful comments made by the participants of this seminar and of the ECPR Joint Sessions 2013 on ‘Legal Mobilization: Europe in Comparative Perspective’, and Pierre-Yves Baudot, Laurie Boussaguet, Jasper Cooper, Renaud Dehousse, Håkan Johansson, Joanna Kostka, Aidan McGarry, Anne Révillard and Lisa Vanhala, as well as the three anonymous referees.

Notes

1 This article is based on qualitative analysis and the empirical material has been gathered in the two cases according to the principle of triangulation between secondary sources, documentary sources and semi-structured interviews. Eighteen interviews have been conducted with EWL and ERTF members (both grassroots members and members of the secretary generals in Brussels). This specific article being part of larger long-term research, interviews have also been conducted with members from other transnational EU-level interest groups, administrative officials from European institutions (CoE and EU) and members from the European Parliament and experts participating to the European policy process over a period of more than 10 years. We analysed the data in a within-case qualitative research tradition, following the guidelines developed by Beach and Brun Pedersen (2013) on how to use secondary sources, and on inference and causal mechanisms in case centric process-tracing.

2 CoE, Committee of Ministers, GT-ROMS(2003)4, 4 March 2003.

Additional information

Biographical notes:

Sophie Jacquot is currently Marie Curie Fellow at ISPOLE, UCLouvain, Belgium.

Tommaso Vitale is associate professor of sociology at Sciences Po, Paris, France.